ISRAEL IN EGYPT, 



OR 



THE BOOKS OF GENESIS AND EXODUS. 



ILLUSTRATED 



BY EXISTING MONUMENTS. 






FLEET STREET, AND HANOVER STREET, 
LONDON : MDCCCLIV. 



<o v*> ^ ' 



.'5 



L. SEELEY, PRINTER, THAMES DITTON. 



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PREFACE. 

The present work has a definite end in view. The 

discovery by Champollion of the mode of reading 

the inscriptions that cover the remains of Ancient 

Egypt, was first brought under the Author's notice 

han thirty years ago. It at once struck him, 

this discovery be real, and if the Bible be a 

li ,ent of facts, the one must of necessity illus 

crate the other. Under this conviction he has since 

devoted his life to the pursuit of it, — wisely or not, 

is no part of the question now in discussion. 

There is yet another conviction which has aided 
him in making this somewhat costly sacrifice : — he 
writes thus, because such is the fact. He has always 
held it for certain, that the history narrated in the 
Bible must be true, strictly true, a record of things 
as they were, and of facts as they did occur, if its 
doctrines are from God, and therefore worthy to be 
received as religious teaching. If it be not true in 



VI PREFACE. 

this exact sense, — if the men, for example, named 
therein be nations, not individuals, if its positive 
dates be vague numbers, if its miracles be mere 
metaphors, then is the Bible a lie ! " and every lie, 
that men would believe it. is at best but a whited 
sepulchre/' * However fair such a structure may be 
externally, it contains nothing but dead men's 
bones, and all uncleanness, and therefore nothing 
can issue from it but that which is noisome and 
pestilential. The reality of the Bible history is a 
condition indispensable to the genuineness of its 
moral teaching. This proposition, which appears to 
him very clear and self-evident, renders it absolutely 
necessary, that the truth of the history should be 
fully established. In the ensuing pages, the reader 
will find an attempt to establish its truth in this 
strict sense, by the collateral evidence of the monu- 
ments of Ancient Egypt. 

The author is well aware, that this necessity is 
denied, and in quarters whence all opinions come 
forth with the authority and influence of oracles. 
He knows that, by one of the great schools of modern 
thinkers, all such enquiries are denounced as " idle 
attempts to collect evidence ; " -f" and that from 
another class, his work will bring upon him the 



Archdeacon Hare's Life of Sterling, p. ccxxxi. 
f Froude's Remains. 



PREFACE. Vll 

charge of maintaining " ignorant, uncritical, base- 
less assumptions concerning literal inspiration/' * 

He deeply regrets this antagonism, but it is not 
in his power to modify at all the conviction he has 
expressed. 

* Archdeacon Hare, u. s. cxxx. 



CONTENTS. 



P^GE 

Introduction ..... xi 

CHAP. 

I. Preliminary 1 

II. Joseph in Egypt .... 21 

III. The Famine 129 

IV. Egypt during the Sojourn . . 176 
V. The King that knew not Joseph . 238 

VI. Moses in Midian .... 284 

VII. The Plagues of Egypt ... 309 

VIII. The Exodus 383 



INTRODUCTION. 

The mode of reading the hieroglyphics (that is, the 
writings inscribed on all the remains of ancient 
Egypt) has been recovered. How this recovery was 
effected, is an oft-told tale ; but, nevertheless, it 
must be here repeated, for with the exception of 
one or two students, the subject is altogether neg- 
lected in England. 

Apiece of granite was found near Rosetta, on the 
western mouth of the Nile, in digging the founda- 
tion of a fort, by the French army, in 1798. On 
this stone was a long inscription in hieroglyphics, 
with a Greek translation, which explained that it 
was a decree appointing divine honors to Ptolemy 
Epiphanes, who began to reign over Egypt 204 b. c. 
This stone is now in the British Museum. 

A small obelise was brought to England by Mr. 
Banks, from the island of Philse, which lies on the 
extreme southern borders of Egypt. This has a 
hieroglyphic inscription on the shaft, and at the 
base a Greek one, which tells us that it was dedi- 

a 2 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

cated to the gods of Philae by Ptolemy Physcon, 
the second successor of Epiphanes, and by Cleopatra 
his wife. They began to reign 146 b. c. 

The following group of characters (I below) is of fre- 
quent occurrence on both these monuments. This 
had been conjectured to be the transcription in hie- 
roglyphics of the name of Ptolemy, before the arrival 
of Mr. Bankes's obelise in England. On this last 
monument (II.) was another group which (assuming 
the former conjecture to be correct) was in all proba- 
bility the name Cleopatra. The complete proof of 
both resulted from the analysis of M. Champollion, 
who had long diligently studied the antiquities of 
Egypt. It was as follows : 
I II 









12 3 4 5 6 7 

PTOXeMEuS 


pj 




?% 

^ 

^ 


1234567 89 

KLEOPATRA 



The first letter in Ptolemeus and the 5th in Cleo- 
patra are both P. The first character in the ring 
supposed to be Ptolemy, and the fifth in that con- 
jectured to be Cleopatra are both a square block, 
or rather package of linen. [§|| This character there- 
fore was assumed to be p. 

The third letter in Ptolemy and the fourth in 
Cleopatra, are both 0. The corresponding charac- 
ters in the two rings are also both the same, — a 



ESTBODUCTIOIJ. Xlll 

knotted cord ^ , which was accordingly set down 

The fourth in Ptolemy and the second in Cleo- 
patra, are both L. The corresponding characters are 
again the same in both rings. The lion was there- 
fore put down for /, 

The sixth and ninth letters in Cleopatra are both 
A. The sixth and ninth characters in the ring, 
assumed to be Cleopatra, are both a sparrowhawk. 
which we thenceforth write a. 

The first letter in Cleopatra is not in Ptolemy. 
neither is the first character in the ring of Cleopa- 
tra to be found in that of Ptolemy. The triangular 
block was therefore added to the hieroglyphic alpha- 
bet : cl Q- or the Greek K kappa. 

The third character in Cleopatra's ring is one 
blade of a Nile reed L ; the corresponding letter is 
a short e. The last character but one in Ptolemy's 
ring is two such blades. This the discoverer rightly 
assumed from this analogy to be the long e. which 
is the last letter but two in Ptolemy's name. From 
this approximation he was able to solve the diffi- 
culty which the comparison of the ring of Ptolemy 
with his name presents. There are nine letters in 
the name, but only seven characters in the ring. 
The intermediate vowels were often omitted in the 
ancient Egyptian writings, as in the Hebrew and 
other oriental languages. Long study of the Coptic. 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

(which is the ancient Egyptian written with Greek 
characters) had rendered Champollion perfectly 
familiar with this fact. He therefore put down the 
fifth character in Ptolemy's name, a boat-stand ^=J 
for m, and the seventh, a crotchet or yoke, p for 5. 
Both were soon verified from other names, and the 
hieroglyphic transcription of the name Ptolem^us 
w r as read Ptolmes. 

The penultimate letter in Cleopatra is R, which 
does not occur in Ptolemy. The last character but 
one in the ring is not found in the hieroglyphic 
transcription of Ptolemy. It is a human mouth, 
< ^» which we put down from hence, r. 

One step only was now required to complete the 
analysis of both rings : but here again was a diffi- 
culty. The second letter in Ptolemy and the seventh 
in Cleopatra are both T, but the corresponding cha- 
racters are altogether different. In Ptolemy it is 
represented by a small stone shaped like the seg- 
ment of a sphere, and used for polishing, c\ ; but in 
Cleopatra's ring a human hand iJgSl has the power 
of t This comparison suggested that the same 
sound had many representatives in hieroglyphics — 
the system of homophons, as its discoverer well 
named it. 

The key to the reading of these mysterious writings 
was now evidently recovered. There is no occasion 
to proceed further with its history. Its results will 
be far more likely to interest the reader. 



INTRODUCTION. 



XV 



NAMES OF THOSE WHO HAD BEEN SOVEREIGNS IN 
EGYPT. 

These are always written in frames or cartouches. 

ROMAN EMPERORS. 

Augustus Caesar, ^-^^-^ Tiberius Cassar, 



(from Esneh.) 
autkrtr 
ksaars. 



fi=£\ 



(from Philse.) 
tibris 
kesrs. 



3ga 



THE PTOLEMAIC KINGDOM IN EGYPT. 

Phili P ^ Alexander ^^ Queen 

Arsinoe. 



the Great. 
(Karnak.) 
alksantrs. 



£z\ 



arsn. 



of 
Macedon. 
plipos. 

For Ptolemy and Cleopatra see p. xii, 

PERSIAN KINGDOM IN EGYPT. 



££ 



Cambyses. 
kmbat 



Darius. 
triush. 



Xerxes. 
shaershu. 



fE2h 



THE KINGDOM OF THE NATIVE PHARAOHS. 

The 26th Dynasty, about 600 b. c. 
The royal names at this period are all written in 
two rings. The second ring contains the name, and 
that only we translate. 



Psammetichus. 
psmtk. 



Pharaoh 

Hophra. 

ht-haa-phra. 




Pharaoh 

Necho. 

nku. 




XVI 



INTRODUCTION. 



The 25th Dynasty about 700 b. c. 
These kings came from Ethiopia. They are called 
Ethiops in the Bible. 



Sabacho. 
shvk. 




Tirhakah. 
tiharka. 




The 22nd Dynasty, about 800 b. c. 
Shishak. This was the Pharaoh who invaded 



4 



fiS\ Judah in the days of Rehoboam, 
the son of Solomon. The picture 
of his triumph afterwards, yet re- 
mains on the north external wall 
of the palace of Karnak in eastern 
Thebes. 
The 20th Dynasty, about the time of the Exodus. 



LXX. 

Sesonchis. 
shshnk. 



Sethos II. 

stei. 

The Pharaoh 

who perished in 

the Red Sea. 





(Si 



Ramerri 

his son, 

who perished 

with the 

first born. 









Queen Thouoris. tliavrus. The daughter of 
the king that knew not Joseph, the patroness 
of Moses. iMi 

The 19th Dynasty, about the time of Moses. 

Ramses II. the final expeller of the rp\f 
Shepherds from the Delta : the king 
that knew not Joseph, ra-rnss. \ 

From this time the royal names, are often written 
in one ring only. 



m 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 



The 15th Dynasty, Canaanite Shepherds 
(so called.) 
Aphophis the 



patron of Joseph. 
aphaph. 



□ □ 



His capital was Heliopolis? 
at the head of the Delta. 



UK, 



The 3rd and 4th Dynasty, the builders of the 

Pyramids. 
Suphis the Soris the first king of the 

builder of the f^J 4th Dynasty, shure. The 
great pyramid. Kj builder of the middle py- 

shafu. " ramid of Abusir. 

/fnj\ Sephuris of the 3rd Dynasty, sanfru. The earli- 
er est of the kings of Egypt of whom any cotem- 
\V porary monument has been found. 
The 1st Dynasty. 
Menes, the His name as king of Egypt oc- 

protomonarch r-, \ curs in that of a prince of the 
of Egypt. mnm*rr* court of Suphis, whose tomb is 
(Hieroglyphic UL> at Ghizeh. Josephus says that 
genealogies.) Menes reigned many years be- 

fore the times of Abraham. 
The subjoined alphabet is strictly artificial. It 
gives the characters employed in the foregoing table 
of kings, arranged under their proper sounds, and no 
other. 

aeiou iiUUB 

hb Tr$. uor h |d h J b 1 h 

dt ^3,^. 



XV111 




INTRODUCTION 




f 


•Vjfi- 






lr 


£z&.?=^. 






m 


fea'Jjrx 






n 


Awv\I 






P 


n 






s 
sh 






cli (gut 


tural 
ring 


)• 




The 


or frame ^ 


1 w 



"1 which incloses these 
names is the ground plot of a cattle-pen made of 
" hurdles/' ggg . The first king of . Egyp t, th e 
founder of Memphis, was named Menes. C^JQ 
mn-ei, which means " hurdle-maker. v He first 
enclosed his name thus as an indication of its 
meaning. All the kings of Egypt after him were, 
or professed to be, his descendants, and they also 
assumed it in token of this consanguinity. So strong 
was the feeling under the native Pharaohs that 
every king of Egypt must of necessity be of the race 
of Menes, that the priests pretended that Cambyses 
was the natural son of Amasis II, whom he con- 
quered, and Alexander the Great, of Nectanebo, the 
last native king of Egypt. 

We have found the meaning of these characters 
by taking the names to pieces. In order to show 
how the system was invented, we must put it to- 
gether again. 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

All the letters or characters in this mode of 
writing, are pictures. It is generally supposed that 
the Egyptian system differs in this particular from 
other writings of the same antiquity. Such how- 
ever is not the fact. They also were constructed 
throughout upon the same principle. All the letters 
in them were at first pictures of objects. 

Three modes of writing only are known of an 
antiquity at all approaching that of the inscribed 
remains of Egypt. These are : 

1. Hebrew. The language of the entire eastern 
coast of the Mediterranean. It was used with very 
little dialectic variation by all the Shemites and 
Hamites that first peopled the district. The oldest 
known monuments of it are coins of some of the 
later kings of Judah, 8 to 900 b. c. 

2. Greek. The language of Javan, (Ion) the son 
of Japhet, (Gen. x. 9.) It was spoken by the first 
settlers on the north coast of the Mediterranean, 
both on the continent and in the islands. Inscrip- 
tions in it on stones and metal are very numerous, 
and some of them nearly as old as the earliest re- 
mains of Hebrew. 

These two languages were at first written with 
the same alphabet. 

3. Assyrian, or Nmevite. The wedge-shaped 
characters on the ruins in the valley of the Tigris 
and Euphrates, where once stood Nineveh and 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

Babylon. These likewise are degradations of the 
same alphabet, suggested by the hard glassy material 
in the neighbourhood, imperfect tools, and want of 
skill in engraving. The system seems to have been 
written in two or three different ways. It is the 
original whence were derived the Sanskrit, the 
Thibetan, and the rest of the square-lettered alpha- 
bets of Asia. 

Of these three modes of writing, the Hebrew and 
Greek have both been perpetuated by means of their 
alphabets : so that the names and powers of the 
letters, the meanings of the words, and the structure 
of the languages in which the inscriptions were 
written, are well known. The Ninevite inscriptions, 
on the other hand, represent the sounds of lost lan- 
guages. A few characters only have yet been de- 
ciphered, and a few proper names read in them. 
This circumstance, together with the fact that the 
system itself is a mere degradation, altogether ex- 
cludes it from our present enquiry : even though 
some of the inscriptions in it may possibly be as old 
as the oldest known forms of the other two systems. 

The following collation of the oldest forms of the 
Hebrew and Greek alphabets very clearly shews, 
that both were the same at first, that all the letters 
were pictures, and that the names of the letters 
were also those of the objects represented by the 
pictures. 



HAMS. MOST AXCIE3JT FORMS 

Hebrew. Greek. Hebrew. Greek- 

Aleph S Alpha A a f<( X^> A A. 



PICTVRES. 



HXAZriHG OF PRONTJKCIA- 
KAM£S. TIOV. 



A 
A, 






Beth ^ Beta B 3 
Giraei ^ Gamma r 7 

Daleth T Delta A 5 

He H [rough 
breathing] 

Vau ^ [smooth . 
breathing] 

Zain f {.see Tzade] £ 

Chethn EtaHT] ^{=| Y\S 
Teth tO Theta ® e C£} O 

Yod 1 Iota I t fffll 

Caph 2 Kappa K K ^ / 
Lamed 7 Lamda A A / 

Mem ft Mu M /* ijj 41 
Xun 2 Nu N V ^ 

Samech O Sigma 2 0" j 

Ain ^OmisronO Q A 

Ph £Ph * ^ 

Tzade ^ Zeta Z f NAM 

Koph p p^j 

Resh -> Ropp 04 

Shin W 4"* /SAA - 

Thau H Tau T T VH" 



AM 
3PT 



•^ 



an ox a 

tent. dwel-\ ^ 

ling J 

camel g 

door d 

window- ■» Yi 
lattice J 

hook, peg v, (smooth 1 
breathing) J 

club, sword z 



hurdle 




xxu 



INTRODUCTION. 



The correspondence of the oldest forms with the 
original pictures is very traceable. But in the later 
forms they were lost, save in the names of the let- 
ters. The convenience of the writer, and a certain 
uniformity and neatness in the appearance of a 
written text, soon altered their shapes, so that they 
became arbitrary marks representing sounds only. 

The principle upon which the form and the sound 
have been associated likewise appears from this 
table. The form is made to stand for the first sound 
in the name of the thing ; like a, ape ; b, bull ; 
c, cat, in a modern horn-book. 

The Mizraites who colonized the valley of the 
Nile, constructed their system of writing upon the 
same principle. Their first alphabet was this : 



Form. 
3j 



Thing. Name in Power. 
Coptic. 

reed ake a, e, o 

quail ov/mt f , v u 

w KinHeb. b 



thread 
rope 

metal 



koph 



cup 
mouth ro 

hurdle movae 



h 
k 
1, * 



inter- 
change 



Form. Thing. 



vase for 
offering 
water 



Name in Power. 
Coptic. 

nu 

water 



_— cleft sub- 

9 l JjM stance bound 

^ together 



10 



11 



12 i 



13 1 



crotchet 
or yoke 

looped 
cord 



polisher 

plate 
paten 



pah 

to cleave 



part 

touot 
to tie 



t pro- 
noun 



taate t medial 
to polish & final 



shei 



sh 
ch 



INTRODUCTION. XX111 

The principle upon which the forms and sounds 
are associated is the same here as in the other two 
alphabets. The form stands for the first articula- 
tion in the name of the thing. It also exactly cor- 
responds with them in one or two characters. These 
are : — 5 koph " the drinking cup " h This is very 
evident. The Egyptian form of it was a metal dish 
with a loose ring ; convenient both for hanging on 
a peg in the tent, and for packing on the journey. 
8 nu " water/'' n. The Egyptians made the word 
for water Q\ nu, instead of "»£ mu, or D^ft mem, 
that it might coincide with the name of Noah the 
Patriarch whom they worshipped as the god of 
water. ^^O^f nuc ^' m3, ^e picture of water 
therefore stood for n in their alphabet, instead of m 
as in the other alphabets. They retained however 
in their language the primitive word for water. 
The original picture of it also " the wave/' #m^ 
was very early adopted by them as another form 
of n. In some exceedingly ancient inscriptions it 
is interpreted by the earthen vase thus Jf .* In 
the other alphabets this picture represents m. (jnem 
or mu. See table.) But in the Mizraite dialect of 
the primitive language, the sounds m and n inter- 
changed, or rather the one was inherent in the 
other. 9 p bears in some ancient transcriptions 
considerable resemblance to two rows of teeth, g 

* Tomb, No. 17, Saquara, &c. &c. 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

It may therefore have been Phe or Pi, adopted from 
the primitive alphabet, (See table.) 

Thus plain is it that the framers of this Egyptian 
alphabet must have known the original whence the 
other alphabets were derived, and been familiar 
with the principle of its construction. 

These thirteen letters are the foundation of the 
whole written system of Ancient Egypt. In the most 
ancient texts of it they are placed, either immediately 
before or after other characters denoting the same 
sounds, to interpret them. In later texts these 
characters are not so interpreted. Their powers 
had become perfectly well known, so that they no 
longer need' interpretation. 

The following are examples, ^j- ab " flesh/' is so 
written in texts of all ages except the oldest, where 
it stands thus, J^ J . The syllable hi or hr is like- 
wise written ^ in all later texts ; but in the most 
ancient tombs it is always written thus, jjjg^ . By 
thus comparing together the ancient with the more 
recent texts, we obtain the following alphabet : 



INTRODUCTION. 

a, e, is interpreted by Jj 



XXV 



'h 

k 

n 



t 
sh 



?? ?? 



J? 3? 



5? 3? 



3? 3? 



33 3? 



33 33 



33 33 



i 



^~ *> 





rnTn 



12 3 

4 -5 



t 



6 7 8 9 10 
11 12 13 

I.U.I 

14 15 16 
17 18 

act 

19 20 21 

!«. 

22 23 24 
25 26 



1 Tomb of Nahrai, Benihassan Ins, c. 104. 2 id. c. 152. 

3 id. c. 115. 4 Name of Usercheres, Ghizeh, &c. 



5 Tomb at El Bersheh, Leps. II, 184. 

7 Tomb of Amenemes, Benihassan. 

9 Nahrai c. 157. 

11 Tomb 20. Saquara. 

13 id. et passim. 

15 Nahr. c. 174, &c. 

17 Nah. c. 18 &c. &c. 

19 Ghiz. 26. 

21 Nah. c. 206. 

23 Amenemes. 

25 Nah. c. 194. 



Tomb 91. Ghizeh. 
8 Tablet, 567. Brit. Mus. 
J0 Nahrai pass. 
12 idem. 
14 id. 17 Saq. 
16 Amenemes. 
18 Nah. c. 211, &c. &c. 
20 id. c. 171 &c. &c. 
22 Nab. passhn. 
24 Nah. passim. 
26 Ghiz. 49 &c. 



XXVI INTRODUCTION. 

All these additional characters are written, inter- 
preted in the ancient, and uninterpreted in the 
later texts. The pronunciation of most of them 
had before been ascertained by modern students, 
from their occurrence in proper names and else- 
where. 

This comparison of texts of different ages makes 
it very clear that the thirteen letters of our alpha- 
bet were the best known in the primitive times, and 
had therefore been the first invented. 

The writing of Ancient Egypt then was alpha- 
betic ; that is, its characters represented sounds, in 
exactly the same manner as the other two systems 
with which we have compared it. It differs from 
them however in a remarkable particular. Its in- 
ventors determined that its letters should always 
retain their first forms without degrading into mere 
arbitrary signs. They wanted them to be decorative 
as well as illustrative : so that their inscriptions 
might adorn the objects on which they were written 
as well as explain them. 

The twelve sounds denoted by these thirteen let- 
ters were not enough to write the primitive lan- 
guage intelligibly in any of its dialects. They ex- 
press the elementary articulations of the human 
voice only. But these may be uttered in many 
ways, and the sense of words often varies according 
to the mode of their pronunciation : so that a sepa- 



INTRODUCTION. XXV11 

rate letter is required for each difference. Hence 
it was that the Hebrew alphabet came to have 
twenty -two letters, and the Greek twenty-four ; and 
also, that so many of the letters in both alphabets 
are closely allied to each other in sound. 

This necessity likewise contributed to the in- 
crease of the Egyptian alphabet. Many of the new 
letters were retained in the system to express modi- 
fications in the sounds of the primitive letters that 
at first interpreted them. 

But the circumstance that every letter in this 
mode of writing remained a picture, supplied another 
and still stronger motive for the multiplication of 
the number of characters in it, and to an extent 
very far beyond that of either of the other systems. 
Such a writing requires, and of necessity, that the 
meanings of the words as well as the sounds should 
be suggested by the pictures of which it is com- 
posed ; it could not be read without a help of this 
kind. This is so clear that it might have been 
known beforehand. It was found out by experience 
in Egypt. The most ancient texts are altogether 
alphabetic or nearly so : i. e. every character in them 
denotes a sound. They are likewise scarcely to be 
understood ! This obscurity however was soon 
perceived, and two devices were framed to render 
them somewhat more perspicuous. These are just 

b2 



XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 

as simple and child-like as that by which the radi- 
cal letters were formed. 

A. Initials. 

This device is merely an extension of the principle 
of the radical or first alphabet. The medial and 
final sounds of a word written with the letters al- 
ready invented, were added to the picture of the 
thing it denoted, which was made the initial (or 
first) letter. In the earliest times this initial was 
accompanied by the radical letter, the sound of 
which it represented ; but afterwards, through long 
use, the form and sound became sufficiently asso- 
ciated, and the interpreting or index letter was no 
longer needed. Thus the word hotp " a shew table 
of offering/' was written |^fg in the oldest texts. 
The second character $£=* is a picture of the table 
itself, as set forth before the images of the gods. 
The cord | that precedes it shows that it is to be 
pronounced h. But the pronunciation of this fre- 
quently used group soon became sufficiently known 
without the index letter : so that nearly every- 
where it is written thus £rB • In the same manner 
sha, " a joint or cut consisting of the ribs of an 
ox/' was at first written thus 9'S^I\ :* but very 
soon afterwards the power of the initial picture be- 
came familiar to men's minds, and in all later texts 

* Tomb, No. 17 Ghizeh. 



INTRODUCTION. XXIX 



it is inscribed thus : -S^j) . So also nh, the name of 
the black vulture, or turkey- buzzard, was at first 
written \j[,* but ever after \$ , without the 
wave, because it was then well known that the 
picture was to be pronounced n. 

These index letters generally go before the picture 
they interpret. They sometimes follow it. In one 
or two instances other signs are even interposed 
between them. So little were system and perspi- 
cuity understood in remote times. 

This initial writing was very rigidly confined to 
a single class of thoughts or ideas. Words so 
written never meant the thing depicted, but some 
quality or abstraction not to be represented in a 
picture, of which it was suggestive. The group 
^a htp did not mean " a shew table/' but " union, 
combination," and from thence ic peace, harmony/' 
and many kindred ideas, because meats and drinks 
of different kinds were set forth together on these 
tables. The language exactly conforms to this 
group. The word in the Coptic texts denotes " a 
collective offering/' and has also the sense of 
" union/' " marriage/' and many similar meanings. 
The group M^\ never meant " the ribs of an ox/' 
but " weighed in the balance/' and thence " tried, 
approved," because the ribs of all animals are equal 
on both sides, in number and length. The con- 

* Tomb at Benihassan, &c. 



XXX INTRODUCTION. 

formity of the language to the group is equally- 
striking in the present instance. The Coptic word 
signifies " to divide, to multiply by division/' and 
a crowd of words derived from it signify " equal/' 
" a balance/' " to weigh/' " to adjust &c." In the 
same way the name of the turkey-buzzard written 
initially meant " black/' because that was its 
colour, and not the bird itself. Such is likewise the 
case with every other group so written throughout 
the language. There is no known exception. 

B. Determinatives. 

In its primitive mode of use this is the most in- 
fantile device possible. A picture of the thing in- 
tended followed the letters that spelt its name : 
thus !) | eh, Coptic ehe " a cow/' was followed by ^^ 
No further exemplification is required of this mode, 
which may be called " the determinative of the 
thing." 

Another application of this device displays more 
thought and ingenuity, though just as simple. 
"Words denoting animals were followed by the pre- 
pared hide of an ox, 1^1 . The names of all flying 
creatures were determined by the picture of a goose, 
^ . Violent actions of the arm are signified by 
an arm grasping a club sclu gentler actions of the 
arm by a hand soothing, <&*& . Rapid motions 
were denoted by two legs running J\. Slower 



INTRODUCTION. XXXI 

motions by a leg walking, £ . Words implying 
speech were determined by the picture of a man 
with his hand to his mouth, Jj> . These characters 
may be called " determinatives of kind/' i. e. of the 
class of things or actions to which the word belongs. 
Their invention is by far the most profound and 
abstract thought that appears in the whole system. 

In late texts both initials and determinatives 
are often used alone, as abbreviations of the groups 
to which they belong : but it cannot be too plainly 
stated that they always signify the word and never 
the idea. There was no ideography (strictly speak- 
ing) in the writing of Ancient Egypt. 

Thus was the hieroglyphic system constructed 
upon thirteen letters. It was as strictly alphabetic 
as the Greek or Hebrew writings. The initials and 
determinatives were mere expedients, suggested by 
its necessities and defects. 




S.R.Ha»sc*s L.tm. Leco 



ISEAEL IN EGYPT, 



PRELIMINARY. 



" MARVELLOUS THINGS DID HE IN THE SIGHT OF THEIR 
FATHERS, IN THE "LAND OF EGYPT, IN THE FIELD OF 

zoan/' Psalm lxxviii. 12. 

There is a perfect consistency in God's dealings in 
all things. He lias one measure towards one people ; 
he administers to the same locality, according to 
the same laws, at all times. Towards the people of 
Israel, his dispensations of mercy and of wrath both 
come strictly within one category, "he hath not 
dealt so with any other nation/' His mercies to- 
wards Israel of old were without parallel ; equally 
unexampled are the present judgments of Israel ; 
scattered among all nations, yet separate among 
them, with all the miseries of an extinct nationality : 
Yet, for eighteen centuries that extinction which 
terminates the sufferings of every other dispersed 
people in a very few generations, has not yet befallen 



2 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

him. Israel gasps in his last agonies ; yet not to 
die, but to struggle and to moan — a living death. 
Truly " he hath not dealt so with any other nation/' 

In the same locality we may likewise often trace 
this consistency of administration at all times. In 
no country more remarkably than in the one whose 
history blends with that of Israel throughout so long 
a period; — Egypt, to which Abram went down imme- 
diately after his call from Ur of the Chaldees, and 
whence God long afterwards called his son. Through- 
out the wide interval that separates these two 
events, the histories of Israel and Egypt run parallel. 
Egypt, according to our quotation, was the land of 
wonders from the first* Egypt is also the land of 
wonders to this day ; and the stranger who now 
visits the valley of the Nile will have to acknow- 
ledge, that in " his sight," as well as in that of the 
fathers of old, God " does marvellous things in the 
land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan/' 

Egypt is situated on the driest zone of the world, 
on both sides the equator. It is just to the north- 
ward of the tropical rains. They never extend 
beyond the Astaboras and the southern limits of 
Upper Nubia. On its other border, the more uncer- 
tain mutations of the weather which fertilize the 
temperate zone, die away on the coast of Egypt. It 
is only in the depth of winter, that the clouds which 
career over the stormy Mediterranean, reach her 



PRELIMINARY. 3 

coasts, and sometimes discharge their rains at Alex- 
andria or Rosetta. With this exception, rain is a 
phenomenon in Egypt, contributing in no apprecia- 
ble degree to her fertility, and forming no element 
whatever in the calculations of the husbandman. 
Egypt is, moreover, very near the centre of by far 
the driest portion of the whole surface of the earth. 
The arid, unproductive sand-plains of the Sahara, 
commence at her western border, and stretch away 
from thence to the westward, for more than 4000 
miles to the Atlantic. To the eastward are the sun- 
bleached, sterile mountains of the eastern desert, of 
the Sinaitic peninsula, and of Arabia Petrsea ; and 
beyond them, the salt, dusty, dry tracts of Persia 
and Beloochistan, for at least an equal distance ; so 
that Egypt is a narrow strip of fertility, reclaimed in 
the midst of 8000 miles of desert by the waters of a 
vast tropical river. The rest of the earth's surface 
presents no parallel to this. 

The phenomena strictly peculiar to Egypt arise 
out of these circumstances. 

The annual overflow of the Nile is the result of 
the tropical rains on the mountains of Abyssinia and 
South Ethiopia. It first appears at Memphis, about 
the summer solstice. It reaches its height about the 
autumnal equinox. It has entirely subsided at the 
winter solstice. The diffusion of this fertile flood, 
over the arid surface of the desert, requires the 

B 2 



4 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

mind and the labour of man to an extent unknown 
in any other country. The digging of canals, of 
overflow and recession, the close observation of the 
right moment when the waters are to be admitted 
through the flood-gates, and when, the flood-gates 
being closed, the sluices which allow them to return 
to the bed of the river must be opened, are niceties 
upon which the success of the husbandman entirely 
depends, and which keep both his mental and bodily 
faculties in constant exercise. A day's mistake in 
either, is fatal to his hopes. Then, by means of 
irrigation during the low Nile, the fertile loam of 
Egypt will produce yet another crop : and the gover- 
nors of Egypt have never been slow or gentle in 
their exactions from the wretched slaves that till 
the soil ; so that the creak of the water-wheel and 
of the shadoof, or balance-bucket, never ceases. And 
" the land of Egypt is still the house of bondage " 
to the human race. 

One other peculiarity of Egypt will also require 
some notice. The extreme dryness of the atmos- 
phere tends to the preservation of all remains of 
ancient constructions and of every other monument 
of human labour, to an extent without example in 
any other country. From the granite of Syene, 
down to the coat of Nile mud, stuccoed, and inscribed 
with hieroglyphics in colours, nothing appears to 
have undergone any change from atmospheric causes 



PRELIMINARY. O 

since the day it was finished. Bread, fruit, flowers, 
bakemeats, corn, seeds, linen in quantities incredible, 
wooden figures of most delicate execution are found 
in the tombs of Egypt, as little changed by the 
4000 years wherein they have lain there, as the gems 
in the metal rings that accompany them. From the 
first king that sat upon the throne of Egypt, down 
to Caracalla and Septimius Severus the Roman 
emperors, whatever memorial the hand of man has 
spared, the tooth of time has in no degree injured. 

In addition to the preservation of the monu- 
ments of Egypt, their number also far surpasses 
those of any other ancient nation. Every city, 
town and village, of ancient Egypt, had its temple 
and its cemetery. There was not a pillar or a stone 
in the temple which was not covered with reliefs 
and inscriptions. There was not a tomb, or sarco- 
phagus, or mummy-case in the cemetery which 
was not similarly decorated. All these inscriptions 
were, in a sense, historical. Those on the temples 
related the exploits in war, or the acts of devotion 
in peace, of the king who had constructed them. On 
the remains in the tombs are inscribed the names of 
the deceased persons whose property they had been, 
and whose mummies were deposited in them ; — so 
that in a sense, there is scarcely a monument of 
ancient Egypt that does not throw light upon her 
history, and from the days she first became a king- 



b ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

dom until now, it would be hard to say that any 
one memorial had perished through the lapse of 
time. 

These inscriptions are written in very remarkable 
characters (called hieroglyphics, by the Greeks), the 
mode of reading which is now, as we have seen, to 
a great extent, recovered. 

These monuments, however would be unavail- 
able as history, were it not that the Greeks in 
the times that followed those of Alexander of 
Macedon, had very great curiosity in all that related 
to Egypt, and translated the histories on the walls 
of the temples. Little remains to us of these trans- 
lations, save mere lists of royal names ; but these 
are of great value, because they can be identified 
with the hieroglyphic originals, and by their help 
we can place the names of the kings we read on the 
temples in the order of their succession. 

So that the climate of Egypt itself has combined 
with the curiosity of the Greeks regarding its early 
history, to preserve to us a far more copious and 
connected series of memorials of its ancient great- 
ness, than of any other kingdom that ever existed on 
the earth. 

That the history of Egypt bears some close and 
intimate relation to the inspired history of Israel, is 
a very obvious truth. So plainly is the Bible, the 
book which of all others belongs to, and requires 



PRELIMINARY. 7 

the history of Egypt, that the connection between 
the two has been always acknowledged, both by 
Jews and Christians. Josephus the Jew has pre- 
served to us portions of the lists and histories of the 
Greeks to which we have already alluded, in his 
works on the Old Testament ; the remaining frag- 
ments of these lost works we owe altogether to the 
scriptural comments and illustrations of Eusebius, 
Syncellus and other early Christian writers. The 
same connection and necessity were perceived by 
the Christian scholars of the more modern era of the 
Reformation : and many learned and laborious 
efforts were embodied in ponderous folios, all directed 
to the illustration of Scripture from what was then 
known regarding Egypt. These all failed, for lack 
of knowledge of the subject, and of the means of 
acquiring it. That they were made, however, suffici- 
ently proves the existence in their day, of the con- 
viction we have explained. These details will suf- 
fice to show, that when we claim Egypt and her 
ancient history, as especially a Bible subject, an'd 
illustrative of, and illustrated by, the Bible far more 
than any other book, we are making no fanatical or 
bigotted appropriation, but are merely stating a fact 
which has at all times been acknowledged, and to 
the consciousness of which we owe the preservation 
of the Greek illustrative records by the early Jewish 
and Christian writers. 



8 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

It is the object of the present work to show that 
the recovery of the mode of reading the inscriptions 
which cover the monuments of Egypt now in exis- 
tence, has by no means disappointed these expecta- 
tions ; and that the principal purpose which the 
facts thereby elicited will subserve, is that of 
scriptural illustration. 

The notices of Egypt in the Bible are to the full as 
remarkable, and as distinct from those which allude 
to any other ancient nation, as the natural and his- 
torical phenomena we have already explained. The 
name of Egypt in the Old Testament, was that of 
the third son of the patriarch Ham, so that the 
fact that Egypt was first colonized by him, rests on 
exactly the same evidence as that Assyria was 
colonized by Ashur, or Canaan by the patriarch's 
first-born. The names of Ashur and Canaan have 
been long forgotten ; but the name of Egypt in the 
east, to this day, is that of Mizraim, the third son 
of Ham. The same fact, moreover, though not for- 
mally stated, flows as a clear inevitable inference 
from the tenor of the inspired narrative. In the 
tenth chapter of Genesis, the name of Mizraim 
occurs in the enumeration of the sons of Ham, 
verses 6, 13. In the eleventh chapter is the narra- 
tive of the dispersion of Babel. In the twelfth 
chapter, the event that immediately follows the call 
of Abram, is his emigration into the land of Miz- 



PRELIMINARY. y 

raim ; and that at this remote epoch, this epithet 
had the same meaning as at all subsequent times, 
is demonstrated by the context, where the king of 
Mizraim is called Pharaoh ; which, we need scarcely 
explain, is a title common to all the kings of Egypt 
and peculiar to them. Verses 10, 15. 

This is by no means the only inference regarding 
Egypt that flow r s from this portion of the inspired 
narrative. Egypt was a monarchy settled upon a 
basis very similar to that which obtained long after- 
wards at the time of the call of Abram. Pharaoh 
was surrounded by his princes when the patriarch 
sojourned in Egypt, and therefore ruled as a king 
over a considerable territory. This was not the 
case with any other ancient monarchy at this remote 
period. "We find in the course of the same narra- 
tive, that Shinar, afterwards Babylon, Elam, after- 
wards Persia, (Gen. xiv. 1.) Damascus, afterwards 
Syria, (xv. 2.) were then small independent cities, 
each under its Melek* or petty king. 

All these specialties regarding Egypt in its con- 
nexion with the Old Testament, are equally to be 
noted in the subsequent periods of that history. 
The interpretation of the hieroglyphics has greatly 
increased both the number and importance of them. 
It has been a slow and tedious process, but many in- 

* The word melek abbreviated mek is the name of the hereditary ruler 
of a town or village, to this day, in East Africa. 



10 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

teresting, and, to the verification of the Bible, highly 
important results, have already been realized. It is 
to these results and not to the process, it is to the 
general reader and not to the student of hierogly- 
phics that we exclusively address ourselves. 

We hope to show, first of all, that the anticipa- 
tions so long entertained by believers in Revelation, 
of ample light upon its concise narrative from the 
records of Ancient Egypt, have been abundantly 
verified ; and then that from this new, and by many 
altogether unsuspected quarter, we have large ad- 
ditional evidence that the Bible is true. 

The two heads under which the illustrations we 
have to submit in the present introductory chapter 
arrange themselves, are the first colonization of 
Egypt, and the state of Egypt at the time of the 
visit of Abram. 

§ 1. the first colonization of egypt. 

The Scripture narrative has already presented to 
us Mizraim the son of Ham, with his posterity, as a 
clan or sept in the tribe of his father on the plains 
of Shinar, before the dispersion ; and after that 
event, as having given his name to the valley of the 
Nile, in which his descendants had settled. It 
clearly follows that, on its occurrence, the clan of 
Mizraim emigrated to Egypt. Now the only direct 
route from Shinar to Egypt is across the isthmus of 



FIRST COLONIZATION IN EGYPT. 11 

Suez ; and it is perfectly obvious in itself, as well 
as a fact with which all history makes us familiar, 
that large bodies of men emigrating under circum- 
stances of misfortune, invariably plant themselves 
on the first convenient and safe locality at which 
they arrive, and afterwards extend gradually from 
thence in other directions. Under this view, the 
geographical position of the remains of Ancient 
Egypt, relatively to their antiquity, becomes a ques- 
tion of the deepest and most vital importance to the 
inquiry before us. The present author was the first 
to point out the facts that bear upon this question 
many years ago ; and subsequent researches in 
Egypt have now established them beyond all possi- 
bility of contradiction. The remains of the most 
ancient kings all lie immediately opposite to the 
isthmus and to the ancient city of Heliopolis, at the 
crown of the Delta, just at the spot where the weary 
immigrant, after crossing the sands of the desert, 
and being entangled in the swamps of the Delta., 
would first find rest for the sole of his foot. Not 
only is this fact remarkably in accordance with the 
Scripture narratives : it is equally in harmony with 
the Greek tradition regarding the origin of the 
Egyptian monarchy, according to which the first king 
of Egypt was the first to cross the river and found 
the city of Memphis. The ruins of Memphis are 
part of the locality we have indicated. That this is 



12 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the spot where Egypt was first settled, is further de- 
monstrated by the circumstance, that immediately 
to the southward of it are found the names of the 
kings that, in the Greek lists, come next in anti- 
quity ; and this graduated order obtains for the 
whole valley, as to the great mass of the monu- 
ments ; so that the Greek lists of kings and the 
geographical position of the kings' names in Egypt 
are in exact agreement, and the gradual progress of 
the first immigrants, and their occupation of each 
location in the valley in succession yet remain me- 
morialized on the rocks that hem it in. 

Another very unexpected identification has still 
more securely clenched the proof that Egypt 
was first colonized by the immediate descend- 
ants of Noah. The primitive idolatry of Egypt 
was a hero-worship, and its most ancient gods were 
merely the patriarchs of the Bible deified. The god 
of Heliopolis, for example, was Athom, or Adam. 
The tutelary of Memphis was Ptah ; that is, Phut the 
brother of Mizraim. No, or Noh, was the god of 
the annual overflow, and a deification of the patri- 
arch Noah. Mizraim was also made the local god 
of a city of the eastern Delta, under his primitive 
name of Osiris, that is nsv, Iozar, " the potter/' 
The patriarch Ham, in like manner, took the form 
of Ammon. The demonstration of all this belongs 



AT THE TIME OF ABRAM. 13 

to the history of Egypt : I have there fully worked 
it out, and have now merely to refer to it.* 

The monuments found in the Delta (the district 
immediately to the northward of Memphis and He- 
liopolis) all belong to a much later period of the 
history of Egypt. An interval of many centuries 
separates the two. This circumstance also we shall 
find to harmonize with beautiful exactitude with that 
which is inferred in the inspired history. 

§ 2. THE STATE OF EGYPT AT THE TIME OF THE VISIT 
OF ABRAM. 

The events that immediately followed the call of 
Abram from Ur of the Chaldees are thus related 
in the concise narrative of them embodied in the 
Bible. 

" And Abram passed through the land unto the 
place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the 
Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord 
appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will 
I give this land ; and there builded he an altar unto 
the Lord who appeared unto him. And he removed 
from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, 
and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and 
Hai on the east : and there he builded an altar unto 
the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. 

* The Monumental History of Egypt. (Binns and Goodwin.) 



14 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the 
south/' Gen. xii. 6 — 9. 

This is the history of the period that elapsed be- 
tween the call of Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, 
and his going down into Egypt. It presents to us 
Abram as the chief or head of a nomade tribe, 
pitching his tent in the places most favourable for 
the pasturage of his many cattle, and for this reason 
often changing his place. We infer from these con- 
siderations, that but a brief period is comprehended 
in this portion of the narrative. Tt proceeds thus: — 
" And there was a famine in the land : and Abram 
went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine 
was grievous in the land. And it came to pass 
when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he 
said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that 
thou art a fair woman to look upon : therefore it 
shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see 
thee, that they shall say, This is his wife ; and they 
will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray 
thee, that thou art my sister, that it may be well with 
me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because 
of thee. And it came to pass, that when Abram 
came into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman 
that she was very fair. The princes also of Pha- 
raoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh : 
and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 
And he entreated Abram well for her sake : and he 



AT THE TIME OF ABRAM. 15 

had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-ser- 
vants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels. 
And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house, with 
great plagues, because of Sarai, Abram's wife. And 
Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this thou 
hast done to me ? Why didst thou not tell me she 
was thy wife ? Why saidst thou, She is my sister ? 
so I might have taken her to me to wife : now 
therefore behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. 
And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him : 
and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that 
he had. And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, 
and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, 
into the south [of Canaan]. And Abram was very 
rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold/' Gen. xii. xiii. 
This passage, like those we have already quoted, 
receives large and important illustration from the 
recovery of the mode of reading the inscriptions 
that cover the remains of Ancient Egypt. The re- 
markable circumstances arising out of it, we take to 
be, the settlement of a monarchy in Egypt at so 
early a period, and the migration thither. The 
question of the existence of a kingdom so early has 
already been mentioned. We only state here that 
the monuments, when compared with the lists of 
kings, distinctly elicit the fact, that at the time of 
Abram' s visit, the Egyptian monarchy had existed 
for some centuries. 



16 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

In regard of Abram's migration into Egypt, a 
difficulty seems to arise from another passage in the 
same inspired book, which declares that " every 
shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians/' (xlvi. 
34.) Yet not only does Abram go down into Egypt, 
following the exclusive occupation of a shepherd or 
cattle-feeder, without scruple, when the famine be- 
fals the land of Canaan, but he sojourns there ; and 
with his family is received at the court of Pharaoh. 
The political condition of Egypt, and especially of 
the Delta, the northernmost portion of the valley 
into which Abram must have emigrated, which the 
reading of the hieroglyphics has disclosed, obviates 
this difficulty. 

The narratives which the Greeks had copied from 
the temples of Egypt relate, that at a remote period 
of her history, shepherds of Canaan invaded the 
country, drove the reigning native Pharaoh from 
Memphis, and retained possession of that capital, 
and of the rest of Egypt for a long period. They 
proceed with long accounts of the destruction of 
temples, the massacre of the Egyptians, their sale as 
slaves, and other indignities, and barbarities com- 
mitted by the Shepherds upon the aborigines. The 
monuments however, tell altogether a different story. 
According to them, there were at this period two 
dynasties of kings reigning in Egypt at the same 
time, each pretending to be kings of all Egypt. Both 



AT THE TIME OF ABRAM. 17 

were the lineal descendants of Menes, the first king, 
who also first crossed the Nile and built the city of 
Memphis, on the western bank, overcoming the chil- 
dren of Phut who were settled in that locality. He 
then married the daughter of the Phutite king whom 
he had conquered, and ruled over his kingdom which 
he added to Egypt. He still further benefited his 
country by diverting the course of the Nile, causing 
it to flow more to the eastward than heretofore. By 
this work he greatly increased the fertility, not of 
the land around his new city of Memphis only, but 
also of Heliopolis, and one or two other localities on 
the eastern border of the Delta, where cities were at 
this time also in process of being founded by the 
Migraites. Menes was the son of the founder and 
petty king of one of these rising cities, Tanis, the 
Zoan of our quotation. Such was the reputation 
which Menes acquired by these good works among 
his tribe and kindred, both for himself and his 
family, that he was unanimously elected king of Up- 
per Egypt, or Egypt on the left bank of the Nile, and 
his father or brother king of Lower Egypt, or Egypt 
on the right bank. This division of the kingdom 
and these two co-regent families of kings, both of 
the race of Menes, continued actually up to the 
period of the Exodus, and formally up to the extinc- 
tion of the monarchy. Both lines pretended to the 
whole kingdom, and never waived this pretension, 

c 



18 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

even when there was peace between them. It was 
in these strange political circumstances that the fable 
of the shepherd invasion originated. The dominions 
of the Lower Egyptian Pharaohs had, at the time of 
it, been for more than two centuries circumscribed 
within the limits of a province or two, on the ex- 
treme eastern border of the Delta, by the successes 
of the rival pretension. They were compelled by 
this their position, to seek the alliance of the Ca- 
naanites, who, as shepherds or merchants, ranged 
the desert of Suez. Abram's visit to Egypt took 
place at this period. The Pharaoh with whom he 
had intercourse was a Lower Egyptian king, one of 
the 10th dynasty of the lists. Sebennytus in the 
eastern Delta was his chief city.* This explanation, 
for which we are altogether indebted to the monu- 
ments, converts our seeming difficulty into a high 
probability. 

The alliances with Canaan of these Sebennyte 
Pharaohs, enabled them about a century afterwards, 
with the help of their auxiliaries, to become once 
more the aggressors upon the dominions of the 
Upper Egyptian Pharaohs. They retook Memphis, 

* It is called Heracleopolis in the lists of Manetho, who was a native 
of it, because Hercules was its local god, and because Manetho did not 
care to expose what he felt to be a disgrace to his native city — viz. that it 
had been the capital of a race of shepherd-kings. Sebennytus is the 
n^D Seveneh of the Bible, Ezek. xxix. 10, where it is translated by 
mistake, Syene. 



AT THE TIME OF ABRAM, 19 

and expelled the rival pretension from the whole of 
Egypt. The history of this war was written by the 
partizans of the defeated faction. They therefore 
named the Lower Egyptians, foreigners ; and the 
Sebennyte Pharaohs, shepherd-kings, in reproach 
and derision. The monarchs thus designated were 
nevertheless natives of Egypt, and the lineal de- 
scendants of Menes. The monuments declare this 
fact clearly and unequivocally. It cannot be too 
early or too plainly stated. 

The circumstance that " every shepherd was an 
abomination to the Egyptians/' was a far older 
rivalry than this. It began with Cain and Abel. 
It was that between the husbandman and the herds- 
man. Egypt was especially the land of the former, 
and therefore the latter was unclean in it ; and re- 
mained so, even to the end of the monarchy. 

These, and many more such facts, have appeared 
from the reading of the writings on the ruins of 
Egypt. They are highly interesting and important ; 
needful to be known, not by the Biblical critic only, 
but also by every reader of the Bible. Yet do they 
remain to this day absolutely inaccessible to either 
class of students. The knowledge of them is strictly 
confined to the few who have devoted themselves to 
a most laborious and uninviting subject, and they 
~are themselves altogether the issue of their long- 
continued and unnoticed labours. It is the prac- 

C 2 



20 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

tical results of those labours in the illustration and 
verification of the portions of Holy Writ which dis- 
course of Israel in Egypt, that we purpose to lay 
before the general reader ; omitting the processes 
and analyses whereby they have been worked out, 
as not essential to the matter in hand. We do not 
fear to state that, as we proceed with the history of 
Israel in Egypt, we shall find the illustration thrown 
upon the inspired narrative by the monuments of 
the latter, progressively increasing in value and im- 
portance, so as triumphantly to establish the validity 
of the anticipations of great light upon the Bible 
from Ancient Egypt, and also to afford a proof of 
the Divine purpose in the wondrous preservation of 
her monuments. 



CHAPTER II. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 



An interval of 215 years elapses after the sojourn 
of Abram in Egypt, and then the valley of the Nile 
becomes once more the scene of the inspired nar- 
rative : — 

" And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father 
was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. These are 
the generations of Jacob. Joseph being seventeen 
years old, was feeding his flock with his brethren ; 
and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with 
the sons of Zilpah his father's wives. And Joseph 
brought unto his father their evil report. Now 
Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, be- 
cause he was the son of his old age ; and he made 
him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren 
saw that their father loved him more than all his 
brethren, they hated him, and could not speak 
peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, 



22 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet 
the more. . . . 

" And his brethren envied him, but his father ob- 
served the saying. 

" And his brethren went to feed their father's flock 
in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy 
brethren depasturein Shechem? come, and I will send 
thee unto them. And he said unto him, Here am 
T. And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether 
it be well with thy brethren, and well with the 
flocks ; and bring me word again. So he sent him 
out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 

And a certain man found him, and behold he 
was wandering in the fields ; and the man asked him, 
saying, What seekest thou ? And he said, I seek 
my brethren ; tell me, I pray thee, where they de- 
pasture ? And the man said, They are departed 
hence, for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. 
And Joseph went after his brethren and found them 
in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even 
before he came near unto them, they conspired 
against him to slay him. And they said one to 
another, Behold this dreamer cometh. Come now? 
therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into 
some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath de- 
voured him ; and we shall see what will become of 
his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered 
him out of their hands, and said, Let us not kill 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 23 

him. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, 
but cast him into the pit that is in the wilderness, 
and lay no hand upon him ; that he might rid him 
out of their hands to deliver him to his father again. 

" And it came to pass when Joseph was come unto 
his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, 
his coat of colours that was on him. And they took 
him and cast him into a pit : and the pit was 
empty : there was no water in it. And they sate 
down to eat bread : and they lifted up their eves, 
and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from 
Grilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm 
and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And 
Judah said unto his brethren, What profit to slay 
our brother and conceal his blood ? Gome, let us 
sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be 
upon him, for he is our brother, and our flesh. And 
his brethren were content. Then there passed by 
Midianites, merchantmen, and they drew and lifted 
up Joseph from the pit, and sold Joseph to the 
Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver ; and they 
brought Joseph into Egypt. . . . 

(c And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto 
Potiphar, a prince (saris) of Pharaoh, and sar 
hattabachim. Gen. xxxvii. 1—5, 11 — 28, 86. 

So familiar are the words of this narrative be- 
come through frequent use, that we often overlook 
the truthful touches with which it abounds, and 



24 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

which show out into bold relief and reality, the 
lives and the thoughts, and the habits of those 
primitive rangers of the Sinaitic desert. This how- 
ever, is not the object with which we quote it on 
the present occasion. Joseph is gone down into 
Egypt, and we hasten to follow him thither. 

The merchants or traders to whom Joseph was 
sold were Ishmaelites by descent, and Midianites by 
nation. Midian was the portion of the Sinaitic desert 
which lay immediately adjacent to the eastern fron- 
tier of Egypt. At the time now under consideration 
(that of the so-called shepherd-kingdom) Midian was 
apparently common ground to Egypt and Canaan. 
In the days of Moses, when the shepherds had been 
expelled, the limits of Egypt were better defined, 
and we shall find that then Midian was out of her 
jurisdiction. No monument has been found in this 
part of the desert whence it could be inferred that 
Egypt ever pretended to it : though somewhat to 
the southward, the minerals of the Wady Meghara 
had in the days of Joseph been the object of con- 
tention between the Pharaohs and Canaan for some 
centuries. The records of their strife remain written 
on the rocks at this day. But Midian was a country 
presenting no attractions whatever to the Egyptian 
colonists. Its sterile plains and dreary precipitous 
valleys afforded no home to those who had dwelt in 
cities on the banks of the fruitful Nile. The scanty 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 25 

innutritive herbage called forth by the thin rills of 
brackish water that here and there showed them- 
selves, scarcely sufficed to keep alive the lean herds 
with which the hardy sons of Ishmael depastured 
it in their periodical wanderings over this dreary 
waste. By profession they were merchants. They 
carried to Canaan the corn, the wine, the oil, the 
linen of Egypt. They returned to Egypt with the 
spicery, the balm, the myrrh, the precious woods, 
the minerals of Canaan. Spicery only is mentioned 
in the inspired narrative before us. The clan to 
which Joseph was sold traded in this article alone. 
The demand for it in Egypt was enormous. The 
careful examination of the mummies of different 
epochs establishes the fact that at these remote 
periods it was used in the embalmment both of men 
and sacred animals, to an extent which was not 
practicable in after times, through the failure of 
the supply. 

The twenty pieces or rings of silver, which these 
merchants paid the hardened profligates, as the 
price of their brother, was, at this age of the world, 
by no means the small amount that it sounds in 
modern ears. Silver always takes the precedence of 
gold, when both are enumerated in the earlier por- 
tions of the inspired narrative. The same is the 
case in the hieroglyphic texts ; silver is always men- 
tioned before gold, as the more precious metal, both 



26 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

on account of its comparative rarity, and because of 
its more extensive use in the adornment and utensils 
of the temples on account of its colour. Whiteness 
and purity were inseparably connected in the Egyp- 
tian mythology. 

That these desert merchants brought into Egypt 
Canaanite slaves amongst other commodities, is a 
fact which is abundantly confirmed and amply illus- 
trated by cotemporary remains of the times of Joseph 
and of those that immediately preceded him. As 
early as the epoch of the Pyramids, three centuries 
before Joseph, Canaanite men and women perform 
as posturers, tumblers, and jugglers, before the princes 
of Egypt as they sate and banquetted.* About 150 
years afterwards, hundreds of Canaanite slaves are 
depicted wrestling and fighting as gladiators before 
Chetei, a prince of the court of Osortasen I., of the 
12th dynasty. The tomb of this prince is at Beni- 
hassan. In the same locality is a still more re- 
markable proof of the traffic in slaves with Canaan, 
and of a period approaching still nearer to that of 
Joseph. It is the picture of the ceremonies that 
took place on the delivery of thirty-seven makers 
(or pounders) of stibium (or powdered antimony for 
the eye), which were purchased by Noh-hotp II., one 
of the excavators of the tomb, of a chief or petty 
king of the Jebusites. The chief, his clan, and his 

* e. g. the tomb of Imai 5 one of the princes of Suphis. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 27 

presents are represented in the picture, but not the 
slaves. The picture is well known in England ; for 
since the publication of it twenty years ago, by 
Rosellini,* it has been frequently copied into English 
books, and many conjectures have been hazarded as 
to its import, The hieroglyphics that accompany it 
explain very clearly what it means. It is " the de- 
livery of the stibium-makers which the great chief 
of the Jebusites hath brought, even thirty-seven 
captives of his club/' The transaction took place in 
the sixth year of Osortasen II., the second successor 
of the former monarch (as we shall presently see), 
scarcely a century before the times of Joseph. It is 
impossible therefore for any fact to rest on a firmer 
basis of monumental evidence, than that the Ca- 
naanite traders to Egypt were in the constant habit 
of bringing thither for sale slaves from among their 
own countrymen, whether enslaved as prisoners of 
war or by other circumstances. To a rightly consti- 
tuted mind, evidence like this to the truth of a nar- 
rative is the most valuable of all. 

The meaning of the name Potiphar is, " he who 
belongs (is devoted to) the sun/' the local god of On 
or Heliopolis, at the head of the Delta. This is a 
point of great importance for the locality in which 
Potiphar was a resident. 

The title rightly translated " prince" is of constant 

* M. R. Part 26, seq, 



28 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

occurrence in the tombs of the magnates of Egypt 
of the period before us : and, wonderful to tell, the 
inspired penman has copied it almost letter for letter 
from the hieroglyphic original — srsh. This title 
was highly honourable, and always heads the enu- 
meration of the honours of those to whom it is 
ascribed. 

The office borne by Potiphar is also one peculiar 
to Egypt, and described by two Egyptian words, 
which at a very late period have been assimilated 
to two later Hebrew words. We believe Potiphar to 
have been sar toje, i. e. " prefect (inspector) of the 
plantations/' This is a common office with the 
princes in the tombs of Ghizeh. 

The Pharaoh to whose court Potiphar was at- 
tached, and who afterwards became the patron of 
Joseph, was the king Phiops or Aphophis. All the 
ancient authorities who have mentioned the subject 
agree in this with such perfect unanimity, that to 
reject their testimony is simply to throw overboard 
all antiquity. Aphophis was one of the Memphite 
Pharaohs. 

The history of Egypt in the interval that has 
elapsed since it was last the scene of the inspired 
narrative, will now require our attention. 

Josephus, the Jewish historian, relates that when 
Abram first came into Egypt the Egyptians were 
engaged in a civil war, arising out of differences in 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 29 

religion ; but by the good offices of the patriarch, 
the two belligerent parties were reconciled, and he 
left Egypt at peace. The only parts of this story of 
the slightest historical value are the statements that 
there was a religious civil war in Egypt when Abram 
came thither, and that it had ceased when he de- 
parted thence. Had such not been the fact, Apion 
and the keepers of the temple-records, with whom 
Josephus was in controversy, would haye been too 
happy to haye pointed out the error. The rest of 
the story they would treat as a mere korwpology, as 
it was called, that is, a boast for the purpose of mag- 
nifying his own nation, and for which his own books 
furnished him with the authority. This was the 
universal mode of writing history in those days. 
Now it is the fact that shortly before the times of 
Abraham a great religious feud arose in Egypt. The 
cotemporary monuments are the unerring witnesses 
to this fact. An imperfect hint at such an event- 
may be detected in the account of Egypt in Hero- 
dotus the Greek historian ; but without their inter- 
pretation no human sagacity could have eliminated 
the truth from his legend. He however visited 
Egypt in utter ignorance of the language, and was 
therefore altogether at the mercy of the mendacious 
priesthood, and of his far from honest interpreter. 
According to the legend in question, the names and 
memories of Cheops and Cephrenes, the builders of 



SO JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

the two great pyramids at Grhizeh, a part of the 
cemetery of Memphis, were held in great detestation, 
whereas Mencheres, the monarch who constructed 
the third and smaller pyramid in their immediate 
vicinity, was honoured as one of the most eminent 
of the benefactors of Egypt. The closing of temples 
was one of the atrocities ascribed to the two delin- 
quent Pharaohs. Their re-construction was one of 
the blessings conferred upon Egypt by Mencheres. 

Such is the legend ; and the present condition of the 
three pyramids certainly sanctions the assumption, 
that it is not altogether without some foundation in 
fact. The external casing of granite that once 
covered the pyramids of Cheops and Cephrenes, had 
been removed in the days of Herodotus, B.C. 450 : 
their appearance at this day is exactly that which 
he describes. But their bases are encumbered with 
chips and splinters of this material, worked off by 
the sculptor's chisel, to an extent and depth of 
which no one who has not actually visited them can 
form any conception. These pyramids, after their 
desecration, have evidently served for ages as the 
quarry whence the adjacent cities drew their supply 
of this (in Lower Egypt) precious and costly mate- 
rial. But of the neighbouring pyramid of Mencheres, 
more than one half of the granite casing now re- 
mains, and of the rest, many huge blocks, untouched, 
lie strewn about its base, bearing all the marks of 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. ol 

comparatively recent removal. Visibly it was not 
until the final extinction of the Egyptian idolatry, 
and for the construction of churches and mosques, 
that the dilapidation of the pyramid of Mencheres 
was begun. Yet, if we examine the tombs of the 
princes, the nobles, and warriors of these three 
monarchs that surround their pyramids, in numbers 
incredible, we shall find that for the reclaiming of 
waste lands, and for the conquest of foreign ene- 
mies, Cheops and Cephrenes were far greater bene- 
factors to Egypt than Mencheres. The comparison 
of the monuments of the three bring out neverthe- 
less a difference which solves the difficulty. It is in 
the religious tenets of the two epochs, and may be 
thus explained. In the days of Cheops and Ceph- 
renes, every king of Egypt became a god on his 
decease, and was worshipped in his pyramid, and 
associated in divine honours with the dead patri- 
archs of their original pantheon. But in the days 
of Mencheres (about a century afterwards, accord- 
ing to the monuments,)* this king-worship ceases 
altogether, and the dead patriarchs are the only 
gods. Osiris also, who is Mizraim, the tutelary of 
Abydos, and who is never once mentioned on the 
tombs of the former epoch, first assumes on the 
monuments of Mencheres the office of king of the 
dead, which he ever afterwards retained in the 

* The Greek lists are not to be relied upon. 



32 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

Egyptian mythology. The motive for this elevation 
is a perfectly obvious and natural one, according to 
the modes of thought that prevailed in the ancient 
world. The deceased patriarch who founded the 
Egyptian monarchy was jure divino, the king of all 
dead Egyptians. Mencheres merely gave him his 
rights. 

A civil war in Egypt was the consequence of the 
changes in religion effected by Mencheres. The 
monuments and the lists combine in their indication 
of trouble and confusion in the times that follow 
his. Now, if Abranij (according to the uncontra- 
dicted tradition of Josephus), came into Egypt while 
this civil war was raging, and if it ceased before his 
departure, the time of this cessation corresponds, of 
course, with that of Abram's visit. We know the 
time in the history of Egypt, when this peace was 
concluded. It was at the commencement of the 
12th dynasty of kings, as it is called in the lists. 
We know it by this : the lists then come once more 
into perfect harmony with the monuments ; whereas, 
for the five preceding dynasties, nothing can be made 
of the lists when compared with the monuments. 
They tell of hundreds of kings, mostly nameless ; 
whereas the monuments interpose five kings only 
between the last monarch of the sixth dynasty, and 
the first of the 12th, and of those five, four are found 
nowhere but in genealogies. The conclusion regarding 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 33 

the lists which this comparison suggests, is fully es- 
tablished by the recurrence of the same confusion in 
every other period of anarchy throughout the history 
of the monarchy. Advantage was afterwards taken 
by the priesthood, of such times, to insert in their 
lists dynasties of nameless kings reigning through 
fabulous centuries, for the purpose of exaggerating 
thereby the antiquity of Egypt. 

The inspired narrative very satisfactorily confirms 
this our assumed date for the visit of Abram to 
Egypt. The commencement of the 12th dynasty 
precedes the times of Phiops or Aphophis by about 
two centuries : — which is also the proximate inter- 
val between the epochs of Abram and Joseph. 

A time of great prosperity, lasting for upwards of 
a century, is the combined indication of the monu- 
ments and the lists, as the consequence of this paci- 
fication. The adherents of Mencheres were clearly 
in the ascendant, and were the unquestioned rulers 
of all Egypt. They extended the bounds of Egypt 
far to the southward. The greater part of Nubia 
was added by them to the monarchy, and it is in 
this quarter only that their monuments shew their 
territorial acquisitions to have been made. Their 
northern frontier must in the nature of things have 
been comparatively neglected : — for at this earlier 
period it is not possible that their forces would be 
sufficient adequately to maintain both frontiers. 

D 



34 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

We have said that the religious tenets prevalent were 
those of Mencheres. This sufficiently appears by 
their writing their names in two rings ; a practice 
which commences with the immediate successors of 
Mencheres. 

That the adherents of the old religion would be 
exceedingly depressed, and probably persecuted dur- 
ing this period, we may readily suppose ; but at the 
same time it is not at all likely that the schism 
should have been healed. We therefore find, with- 
out any surprise, that the shepherd-kings have left 
us the evidence that they still received the old reli- 
gion, by writing their names in one ring only. 
Nothing is more likely, than that their co-religionists 
in Egypt proper, would flee from the persecution of 
the opposite party, to the strongholds which the 
shepherds had built in the swamps of the Delta, and 
that thereby the shepherds would receive a consider- 
able accession of force. The attention of the native 
Pharaohs was so centred upon the Southern frontier 
of the kingdom, that they would scarcely perceive 
the danger that threatened it from the North. These 
considerations render natural and probable the event 
that actually followed. During the reign of the 
seventh monarch of the 12th dynasty, who is called 
in the lists Ammenemes, in a fragment of their tem- 
ple histories preserved by Josephus,* Amun Timceus, 

* Against Apion. Vol. I. c. 14. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 35 

and on the monuments Timceus Amenemes, the 
Shepherds or Lower Egyptians, under a king named 
Saites, made a sudden incursion into Middle Egypt, 
defeated Amun Timoeus, and obtained possession of 
Memphis, which they made their ecclesiastical capi- 
tal during six successive reigns, and for a period of 
somewhat more than a century. 

The conquests of the Shepherds or Lower Egypt- 
ians extended far to the southwards. There is 
monumental evidence that they were at Essiout, 
which is near Abydos, on the southern frontier 
of Middle Egypt. Amun Timoeus seems to have 
fled before them. The later monuments of his 
long reign, and those of his few obscure successors, 
are all found very far in Ethiopia. These, however, 
are matters which belong to the history of Egypt. 
We return to the Delta and the Lower Egyptian 
kingdom : Aphophis, or Phiops, was the third or 
fourth successor of Saites. His political capital 
was Heliopolis. The proof of this, which is per- 
fectly irrefragable, we shall consider hereafter. 

Joseph, then, is at On, or Heliopolis, at the crown 
of the Delta, a magnificent city, famous in after 
ages for the number, magnitude and beauty of its 
temples, all dedicated to Re Athom, — i. e, to the 
sun as the father of the gods, impersonate in Adam 
the father of mankind. The obelisks with which 
ancient Rome was adorned, and which still remain 

D 2 



36 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

in modern Rome, were all brought from the ruined 
temples of Heliopolis. This is the united testimony 
of their inscriptions, and of the classic authors. One 
obelisk remains upright to this day, amid its sand- 
covered ruins. It is of a more ancient date than any 
in Rome, of the times of Osortasen I. of the 12th 
dynasty. When Joseph arrived at Heliopolis, it had 
stood where it now stands, for more than a century. 

The Hebrew boy has been sold to Potiphar, one 
of the princes of Pharaoh Aphophis, and the in- 
spector of the royal plantations. 

" And Joseph was brought down into Egypt ; and 
Potiphar, a prince of Pharaoh, and inspector of the 
plantations, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands 
of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down 
thither. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he 
was a prosperous man, and he was in the house of 
his master the Egyptian. 

" And his master saw that the Lord was with 
him, and that the Lord made all that he did to 
prosper in his hand. And Joseph found grace in 
his sight, and he served him ; and he set him over 
all his house, and all that he had he put into his 
hand. And it came to pass, from the time that he 
had set him over all his house and over all that he 
had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for 
Joseph's sake ; and the blessing of the Lord was 
upon all that he had in the house and in the field. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 37 

And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand, and 
knew not ought he had, save the bread which he 
did eat/' Gen. xxxix. 1 — 6. 

An expression is used in this portion of the in- 
spired narrative, of a very remarkable character. 
"We are told that Potiphar was an Egyptian. This 
would appear, at first sight, to be a very needless 
piece of information regarding a prince of Egypt 
residing in his native city ; yet is the expression 
thrice repeated. In this very concise narrative, 
wherein no words are wasted and nothing is written 
in vain, we cannot doubt that the peculiar circum- 
stances of Egypt at the time of Joseph's deportation 
thither, have suggested this expression. In ordi- 
nary cases it would have been a mere pleonasm to 
write that a prince of Egypt residing at Thebes, or 
any other city of Egypt, was himself an Egyptian : 
that would follow as a matter of course. But, at 
Heliopolis, in the days of Aphophis, when there 
were Canaanites both in the court and camp of 
Pharaoh, the case was very different ; and it was 
of the last importance to the descendants of Joseph, 
in after times, to know that their progenitor had 
been a bond-slave in the house, not of one of the 
accursed and devoted race of Canaan, but of a prince 
of Egypt, a lineal descendant from Mizraim, and the 
first settlers, — having his estate at Heliopolis, and 
named hereditarily after the local god of his native 



38 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

city. In these circumstances have originated the 
triple repetition of the fact that Potiphar was an 
Egyptian. 

The office held by Joseph in the house of Poti- 
phar, is frequently represented in the paintings on 
the tombs of this epoch. Their testimony also 
amply confirms that of the inspired narrative. All 
the servants in the houses of the princes of Egypt 
were bond-slaves. 

" And Joseph was a goodly person and well- 
favoured. And it came to pass after these things, 
that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph ; 
and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, and 
said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master wot- 
teth not what is with me in the house, and he hath 
committed all that he hath into my hand ; there is 
none greater in his house than I ; neither hath he 
kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou 
art his wife. How then can I do this great wick- 
edness, and sin against God ? 

" And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph 
went into the house to do his business ; and there 
was none of the men of the house there within. 
And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie 
with me ; and he left his garment in her hand, and 
fled, and gat him out. 

" And it came to pass, when she saw that he had 
left his garment in her hand and was fled forth, 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 89 

that she called unto the men of her house, and she 
spake unto them, saying. See. he hath brought in 
an Hebrew unto us to mock us ; he came in to lie 
with me and I cried with a loud voice. And it 
came to pass when he heard that I lifted up my 
voice and cried, that he left his garment with me 
and fled, and gat him out. And she laid up his 
garment until his lord came home. 

" And she spake unto him according to these 
words, saving, The Hebrew slave which thou hast 
brought unto me, came in unto me to mock me ; and 
it came to pass as I lifted up my voice and cried, 
that he left his garment with me and fled out." 
Gen. xxxix. 9 — ]S. 

For any illustration of the barefaced profligacy 
of this scene we shall search the tombs of Egypt in 
vain. They are exclusively devoted to the praises 
of their inmates, and in no country that ever ex- 
isted were sins of this character more rigorously 
prohibited, or visited with severer punishment ; but 
we shall find there that which renders our narrative 
in the highest degree probable, in the ample details 
of the lives of luxury and ease and self-indulgence 
which were led by the haughty dames of Ancient 
Egypt. Scores of the princesses and noble ladies of 
these times have left on the walls of their tombs the 
imperishable records of the state and magnificence 
in the midst of which thev lived. The luxurv of 



40 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

their couches, the long trains of attendants that made 
their sumptuous toilettes, the stibium-boxes, the 
metal mirrors, the numberless little appliances con- 
nected therewith, buried with their owners as their 
most valued property, and remaining to this day 
the visible tangible witnesses of their luxury ; 
their rings and jewels, their robes in endless va- 
riety, of all these likewise we can produce the yet 
existing testimonies ; while we learn from the re- 
liefs in the tombs where they were found, the 
sumptuous banquets of most elaborate cookery that 
were spread before them, and the soft music that 
played, and the lascivious dances that were per- 
formed by male and female slaves in attendance, 
while they partook of them. Ocular demonstration 
of " the pride, the fulness of bread, and the abun- 
dance of idleness/' of the ladies of Egypt would 
thus be laid before the reader, and all of the precise 
time now before us. These pictures, we repeat it, 
would form the most instructive and perfect com- 
ment upon the passage now under consideration 
that could be imagined. 

" And it came to pass when his master heard the 
words of his wife, that his wrath was kindled. And 
Joseph's master took him and put him into the 
prison, a place where the king's prisoners were 
bound : and he was there in the prison." Gen. 
xxxix. 19, 20. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 41 

The " king's prisoners" in Egypt were prisoners 
of war. They were incarcerated in cells built of 
brick, around the precincts of the temples and 
palaces during the night; in the day-time they were 
employed in making bricks and other drudgery 
connected with the building, which apparently was 
never considered to be finished, For the fact that 
delinquent slaves belonging to the households of 
Pharaoh and his princes were associated with the 
prisoners of war, we are altogether indebted to this 
narrative. The arrangement was a highly probable 
one. 

" But the Lord was with Joseph, and showed him 
mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the 
keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison 
committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that 
were in the prison, and whatsoever they did there, 
he was the director of it. The keeper of the prison 
looked not to any thing that was under his hand, 
because the Lord was with him, and that which he 
did, the Lord made it to prosper/' Gen. xxxix. 
21—23. 

Joseph was the officer or task-master over the 
prisoners. His duties coincided exactly with those 
of the task-masters over his descendants long 
afterwards. A fixed amount of labour was required 
of the jailor, and his superiors never enquired into 
the means whereby it was exacted. The skill and 



42 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

tact of Joseph in obtaining this, recommended him to 
his keeper. These prisons were apparently regarded 
as an indispensable appendage to every great con- 
struction in Egypt. The reliefs upon the walls of 
the temples give fearful indications of the cruelties 
exercised upon their unhappy inmates. Yet the 
Divine blessing can send prosperity even into such 
a den of misery ! This is a consolatory reflection 
to those who believe the Bible. 

" And it came to pass after these things, that the 
eellarman, [keeper of the drinks] of the king of 
Egypt, and his cook, had offended their lord the 
king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth against 
two of his princes [saris,] against the sar of his vine- 
yards, and against the sar of his cooks/' 

These princes were equal, probably superior in 
rank to Potiphar. Their offices were of the highest 
possible consideration. In all pictures of banquets, 
the eldest son hands the viands and the cup to the 
father of the family, the eldest daughter to the 
mother. This is especially the case with Pharaoh, 
so that in all probability these were princes of the 
blood ^3EI • I* * s ver y important that this 
should be understood, as otherwise the force of the 
succeeding narrative is greatly weakened. 

The very ample illustration of which both these 
offices are susceptible, from the paintings on tombs 
contemporary with the epoch before us, again sug- 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 43 

gests the regret we have already expressed, at the 
want of interest in the question, that withholds all 
public encouragement from its pursuit, and renders 
such illustration impossible. 

It will be perceived that the principle of the law 
of Egypt we have before explained, is also in force 
in the present instance. The superior alone is held 
responsible for the whole of the acts of his subor- 
dinates. Both the departments here in question 
were of an extent and importance in Ancient Egypt, 
of which our modern notions will receive but a 
faint impression. Even in the establishments of the 
princes and nobles, hundreds of men were employed 
in gathering the grapes and pressing and storing 
the wine, and also in the preparation of the viands, 
for a single banquet of frequent periodical recur- 
rence. There were more than a hundred dishes 
served in the tri-monthly festivals in honour of the 
dead, held in the tomb of Nahrai at Benihassan. 
The bill of fare yet remains. This is also the case 
with many other tombs. The offence with which 
those two princes were charged must have been of 
a very grave character, connected in all probability 
with some attempt to administer poison. They 
would not otherwise have been committed to the 
slave prison. 

{i And they (the captive princes) dreamed a dream 
both of them, each man his dream in one night, 



44 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

each man according to the interpretation of his 
dream, the vintner and the house-steward of the 
king of Egypt, which were bound in the prison. 
And Joseph came in unto them in the morning and 
looked at them, and behold they were sad. And he 
asked Pharaoh's princes that were with him in the 
prison, saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day ? 
And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, 
and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said 
unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God ? 
Tell me them, I pray you. And he that was over 
the vineyards told his dream to Joseph, and said 
unto him, In my dream behold a vine was before 
me. And in the vine were three branches ; and it 
was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot 
forth ; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe 
grapes. And Pharaoh's cup w r as in my hand, and I 
took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup ; 
and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph 
said unto him, This is the interpretation of it : the 
three branches are three days. Yet within three 
days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head and restore 
thee unto thy place ; and thou shalt deliver Pha- 
raoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner 
when thou wast his vintner." Exod. xl. 5 — 13. 

This passage clearly indicates the office held by 
the functionary in the court of Pharaoh. He had 
the oversight both of the king's vineyards and the 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 45 

king's cellars, as well as the function of cup-bearer 
to Pharaoh. The office was highly esteemed in An- 
cient Egypt. Many of the princes of the courts of 
Suphis and Sephres have inscribed it in the long 
catalogue of their titles. The peculiarities of the 
climate and soil of Egypt are especially suited to the 
culture of the vine, and of these days of old scarcely 
a tomb remains in which the entire process of the 
vintner's art, from the planting and watering of the 
vine-stocks up to the pouring of the expressed juice 
from vessel to vessel, and storing it in earthen jars ; 
is not most carefully and elaborately depicted. That 
the oversight of the royal vineyards was also asso- 
ciated with the function of cup-bearer to the king is 
highly probable, though for the formal statement of 
the fact we are indebted altogether to the passage 
before us. It was once imagined that the vine did 
not grow in Egypt in ancient times, because Hero- 
dotus and the Greek authors do not mention it. We 
believe one of the infidel objections of the last cen- 
tury to the passage before us was founded upon 
this circumstance. The tombs, however, have a voice 
to answer it. 

" But think on me when it shall be well with 
thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me ; and 
make mention of me unto Phoraoh, and bring me 
out of this house. For indeed, I was stolen away 
out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have 



46 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

I done nothing, that they should put me into the 
dungeon/' 

"And it came to pass the third day, even Pharaoh's 
birthday, that he made a banquet for all his court 
(entourage), — and he restored the prince of the vine- 
yards to his office again, and he gave the cup into 
Pharaoh's hand/'. . . . 

" Yet did not the prince of the vineyards remem- 
ber Joseph, but forgat him." Gren. xl. 14, 15, 20, 
21, 23. 

For the elucidation of this passage, there is no 
occasion to dig among the burning sands of Egypt. 
It is human nature, and every man's experience will 
amply illustrate it. Happy they who are taught by 
a trial somewhat less severe, than that undergone 
by the poor Hebrew boy in the dungeon, that " it is 
better to trust in the Lord, than to put any confi- 
dence in princes." Psalm cxlvi. 3. 

" And when the prince, the high steward. (of the 
cooks, litt), saw that the interpretation was good, he 
said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and be- 
hold I had three baskets of white (probably pure) 
meats upon my head. And in the uppermost basket 
was all manner of bake-meats for Pharaoh ; and the 
birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head." 
Gen. xl. 16, 17. 

The illustration of this passage to be found in 
the cotemporary tombs of Egypt, is to the full as 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 47 

important and interesting as those we have already 
considered. The entire process from the slaughter- 
ing and flaying of the oxen, the capture and pluck- 
ing of the birds, and the netting of the fish, up to 
the serving of the bakemeats upon the guest-tables, 
are all minutely and elaborately commemorated in 
these wondrous records of times and customs that 
have so long past away. The most trifling particular 
in the passage finds its illustration there. 

When the sons and daughters of the princes of 
Egypt ^served their parents at table, they carried 
upon their heads three baskets, one piled upon the 
other, and in the uppermost are the bakemeats. 

That in crossing the hypsethral courts of the 
palaces of Egypt, the viands would be exposed to the 
birds, is a trait of every-day life in hot countries, 
receiving such familiar illustration in our own pos- 
sessions in India, that we only notice it for the pur- 
pose of reminding the reader, that in ancient Egypt 
the vulture, the eagle, the ibis, and other carnivo- 
rous birds were held sacred, and to destroy one of 
them was to incur the penalty of murder. Flights 
of these voracious creatures haunted the cities of 
Egypt, and occasioned no little inconvenience to the 
inhabitants. 

a And Joseph answered and said, This is the inter- 
pretation thereof. The three baskets are three days. 
Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head 



48 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree ; and 
the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee. And it 
came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's 
birthday, that he made a banquet for all his court : 
and he hanged the high steward, as Joseph had 
interpreted." Gen. xl. 18, 19, 20, 22. 

The birthday of the reigning king of Egypt was a 
high festival at all periods of its history. One of 
the objects of the Rosetta inscription is, to decree 
the observances to take place on the birthday of 
Ptolemy Epiphanes.* Many similar decrees of ear- 
lier periods are also extant, f That it would also 
be a day for the exercise of justice in a jail delivery, 
is highly probable, and in accordance with ancient 
custom : — though here again our text illustrates 
ancient Egypt, instead of receiving illustration 
from it. 

The tombs of Egypt contain no records of crimes. 
It is to the text therefore that we are once more in- 
debted. Capital punishment was by decapitation in 
ancient as in modern Egypt at this day. After the 
execution, the bodies of the criminals of Egypt were 
hung on trees, to be devoured by the gods of Egypt. 
Our text alone affords us this information likewise. 

" And it came to pass at the end of two full years, 
that Pharaoh dreamed a dream, and behold he stood 

* Hieroglyphics, line 10. Greek line 46. 
f At Medinat Abou, Luxor, &c. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 49 

by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the 
river seven well-favoured kine and fat-fleshed ; and 
they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other 
kine came up after them out of the river, ill-favoured, 
and lean-fleshed, and stood by the other kine upon 
the brink of the river. And the ill-favoured and 
lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well-favoured 
and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. 

And he slept and dreamed the second time : and, 
behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, 
rank and good. And, behold, seven thin ears and 
blasted with the east wind sprung up after them. 
And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank 
and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it 
was a dream/' Gen. xli. 1 — 7. 

We have already explained, that the Pharaoh of 
whom this history is related, was the shepherd king 
Aphophis. This Greek transcription of his name is 
an opprobrious epithet, as is also the case with all 
the other names of the shepherd-kings in the Greek 
lists. His real name was Phiops, or Apappus. He 
was, as we have seen, a native Pharaoh. His monu- 
ments are all found at El Birsheh, Souade, and 
other localities in the south of Middle Egypt, on the 
eastern bank of the Nile. His capital, as we have 
already stated, was Heliopolis. Notwithstanding 
the ill odour in which all the shepherds stood in 
the fables of the Egyptian priesthood, Aphophis is 



50 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

admitted by them to have been a great benefactor 
to Egypt. 

How completely the dreams of Pharaoh are Egyp- 
tian, how every peculiarity connected with the pro- 
ductiveness of Egypt is introduced in them, how 
the river and its overflow are clearly pointed out as 
the only causes both of the plenty and the famine, 
are points with which all readers of the Bible have 
long been familiar. Again, the point is susceptible 
of ample and most satisfactory illustration, from the 
tombs of princes cotemporary with the epoch. The 
great cattle of Egypt and their diseases are frequent 
subjects of the reliefs that cover their walls. From 
them we learn how large a part of the wealth of 
the princes of Egypt consisted, in these remote times, 
of their herds. 

" And it came to pass in the morning that his 
spirit was troubled ; and he sent and called for all 
the magicians of Egypt and all the wise men thereof; 
and Pharaoh told them his dream, but there was 
none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh/' 
Gen. xli. 8. 

Not much is known as yet of the etymology of 
the words translated " magicians " and " wise men." 
We can however explain generally that wisdom in 
ancient times was connected with the ideas of 
secrecy and of hidden things. The u magicians w 
were literally " the whisperers/* and " the wise 
men/' " they who hide." 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 51 

The Egyptian priesthood was noted at ail epochs 
for its pretensions to oneirocriticism. Papyri of the 
Greek and Roman periods, containing the dreams of 
the professional dreamers of the Serapoeum at Mem- 
phis and of other temples, are not uncommon in the 
collections of Europe. 

The divine agency was directly interposed in the 
present instance, or the oracles of Egypt would not 
have been dumb on such an occasion. 

" Then spake the overseer of the vineyards unto 
Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day : 
Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me 
in ward, even me and the overseer of the cooks. 
And we dreamed a dream in one night, — I and he ; 
we dreamed each man according to the interpreta- 
tion of his dream. And there was with us a youth, 
a Hebrew, slave to the overseer of the plantations, 

and he interpreted to us our dreams And it 

came to pass, as he interpreted, so it was ; me he 
restored unto mine office, and him he hanged/' 
Gen. xli. 9—13. 

This passage is quite conclusive as to the high 
rank of the overseer of the vineyards. No mere 
menial would in this manner have been admitted 
into the councils of Pharaoh and allowed to advise 
upon the emergency. This is a point of much im- 
portance to the full intelligence of the entire nar- 
rative. 

E 2 



52 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

u And Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they 
brought him hastily out of the dungeon : and he 
shaved and changed his raiment, and came in unto 
Pharaoh. 

" And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed 
a dream, and there is none that can interpret it : 
And I have heard say of thee, that thou canst un- 
derstand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph 
answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me : God 
shall send Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pha- 
raoh said unto Joseph, &c And Joseph said 

unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one : God 
hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. The 
seven good kine are seven years ; and the seven 
good ears are seven years : the dream is one. And 
the seven thin ill-favoured kine that came up after 
them are seven years ; and the seven empty ears 
blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of 
famine. This is the thing which I have spoken 
unto Pharaoh : What God is about to do he sheweth 
unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of 
great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt : and 
there shall arise after them seven years of famine ; 
and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of 
Egypt ; and the famine shall consume the land ; 
and the plenty shall not be known in the land of 
Egypt by reason of the famine following ; for it 
shall be very grievous." Gen. xli. 14 — 31. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 53 

The Xile, the waters, and the loam thereof, are 
the only agents whereby a single blade of grass 
springs up, or a single corn-blossom expands through- 
out the land of Egypt. This most patent and un- 
answerable fact is as fully acknowledged in all the 
different versions, both of the prediction and the 
fulfilment of this remarkable narrative, as its im- 
portance demands. Such being undeniably the 
case, we have no difficulty in saying what would 
be the causes of the events predicted. Both the 
plenty and the famine would originate in some 
great and marked disturbance of the course and 
measure of the annual overflow. No such events 
have since taken place ; and the circumstances are 
altogether of so extraordinary a character, that we 
may fairly look for some traces of such a disturb- 
ance remaining to this day in a land where nothing 
alters. This point we shall consider hereafter. 

" And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh 
and in the eyes of all his court. And Pharaoh said 
unto his courtiers, Can we find such an one as this, 
a man in whom is the spirit of God ? And Pharaoh 
said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as Grod hath shewed 
thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as 
thou art/' Gen.xli. 37, 38. 

This full acknowledgment of the Divine Being 
who had imparted such wisdom to the Hebrew 
slave, comports but ill with our notions of an 



54 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

Egyptian idolater; but, nevertheless, we find in 
the inspired narrative of these very remote periods, 
many similar proofs that, however mixed up with 
fable, a conviction of the existence and power of the 
true God had by no means entirely departed from 
among men, as at later periods of the history of 
idolatry. See Gren. xii. 17, 18, &c. 

" And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as 
Grod hath showed thee all this, there is none so dis- 
creet and wise as thou art. Thou shall be over my 
house ; and according unto thy word shall all my 
people be ruled ; only in the throne will I be greater 
than thou/' Gren. xli. 39, 40. 

The office of Joseph is a not uncommon one among 
the princes of Egypt. !^^n I* corresponds to 
the mayor or prefect of the palace of the old 
French court. 

" And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set 
thee over all'the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took 
off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph, 
and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put 
a gold chain about his neck. And he made him to 
ride in the second chariot that he had ; and they 
cried before him ab rech, and he made him ruler 
over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said unto 
Joseph, I, Pharaoh, declare, that without thee shall 
no man lift his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt/' 
Gren. xli. 41 — 44. 



JOSEPH m EGYPT. 55 

The princes of Egypt gloried in a long array of 
titles. Two more titles are here conferred upon 
Joseph. That of ah rech fj *@* i. e., a pontifical 
prince, or " pure prince/' This is a common title in 
the ancient tombs. The other title is also often read 
there, £3 ££3 " the overseer, steward of the land/' 
The ceremonies that attended his inauguration ad- 
mit of pictorial illustration from the temples of 
Egypt, of those somewhat later periods when royal 
monuments first appear. Of these remote times, all, 
save the pyramids, that remains, is of individual 
princes. 

" And Pharaoh called Joseph's name tsaphnath 
paaneah, and he gave unto him to wife Asenath the 
daughter of Potipherah the priest of On. And 
Joseph went forth (from Pharaoh) a prefect over the 
land of Egypt." Gen. xli. 45. 

All these words are confessedly Egyptian. They 
have never been otherwise interpreted. This cir- 
cumstance justifies our search, in the cotemporary 
remains of ancient Egypt, for the other names and 
titles which have already occurred to us. The at- 
tempts that have been made to interpret tsaphnath 
paaneah, began with the Greek translators of the 
Septuagint version of the Bible, which was made in 
Egypt about 240 b. c, when all tradition had past 
away, and before the faculty of critical examination 
had been imparted to men. They are mere para- 



56 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

nomastic guesses, only proving the persuasion of 
those who made them that the words are Egyptian. 
The names of offices with which we have already 
dealt, were at a somewhat earlier period (in the 
times of Ezra) assimilated to other words from other 
languages, their original Egyptian meanings being 
also entirely lost. Thus the office ^3EI saris was 
then made identical with a Persian word of some- 
what similar sound, but meaning " eunuch : " a gloss 
which throws into intolerable confusion both the 
inspired narrative, and, with some writers, the his- 
tory of Egypt also. The word sar underwent the 
same fate. Its root is common, both to the Hebrew 
and the Egyptian languages, but with widely differ- 
ent modifications. The Hebrew *itp sar means a 
" prince : " the Egyptian word sar means a " mayor," 
or "prefect" only. The former meaning was ap- 
plied to the Egyptian word at this time also, with 
much confusion to the narrative. The cotemporary 
monuments of ancient Egypt have restored both to us. 
Tsaphnath Paaneah will now require our atten- 
tion. It is evidently two words. Similar examples 
of names of princes consisting of two words might 
be cited from the cotemporary monuments. The 
first of these words has not yet been found in the 
name of any prince of the epoch of Joseph. But if 
we assume that it must have embodied some allu- 
sion to the qualities in Joseph, on account of which 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 57 

it was conferred on him, it presents but little diffi- 
culty. It was probably *Zb)^ ^ tseph-nath, " he who 
receiveth Neith" i. e., the inventrix of the art of 
weaving, and the goddess of wisdom. With the 
other name we have still less difficulty. It actually 
occurs in a tomb at Sacchara, as the name of one 
of the princes of Usercheres, about 150 years before 
Joseph's time, b a¥lj V ^ 1 noech. Its import also 
corresponds exactly with the occasion on which it 
was given. It means, " he who flees from (avoids) 
pollution/' especially " adultery/' So that the first 
name conferred by Pharaoh upon Joseph, commem- 
orated the divine wisdom to which he owed his ex- 
altation ; and the second, his innocence of the crime 
for which he had so long suffered imprisonment. It 
is not easy to conceive of a more perfectly satisfac- 
tory identification than this, when we consider that 
in these times all names, especially new ones, were 
directly significant allusions to the circumstances to 
commemorate which they were conferred. So Abra- 
ham, Gen. xvii. 5 ; Israel, Gen. xxxii. 28 &c. 

The names of Joseph's wife and father-in-law 
were long ago identified by Champollion. Asenath 
i s IPNtJ asnth " she who sees Neith," and Poti- 
pherah is s ^ ^ petephre " one devoted to the sun." 
Both the names are compounded with those of the 
tutelary idols of On, or Heliopolis. The formal 
mention of the circumstance that Potipherah was 



58 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

priest of On, reduces to certainty the strong indica- 
tion embodied in the names o'f these tutelaries. 
The scene of the narrative before us was the city 
of Re-Athom, called On, by the Canaanites. 
To make this demonstration appear to the general 
reader, it is needful to explain that whenever 
the proper name of an Egyptian was a com- 
pound of that of an idol, it was the tutelary of 
the city of which the individual was an inhabi- 
tant. There is absolutely no exception to this rule, 
in the remote times now before us. One other cir- 
cumstance corroborates the same fact, which 
scarcely needs such confirmation. His nuptial 
ceremonies were a part of the honors conferred 
upon Joseph by Pharaoh on the first interview. 
This is the clear import of the narrative, and it is 
moreover strictly in accordance with the customs of 
the east, both then and at the present day. Such 
being the case, it must have been in the native city 
of Asenath that the interview took place : any 
other supposition for a citizen of these remote times 
is extravagant. Thus strong is the proof that the 
scene we are contemplating took place in On, or 
Heliopolis. 

" And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood 
before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went 
out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went through- 
out all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plen- 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 59 

teous years, the earth brought forth by handfuls. 
And he gathered up all the food of the seven years 
which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the 
food in the cities : the food of the field which was 
round about every city, laid he up in the same. 
And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, 
very much, until he left numbering, for it was with- 
out number. And unto Joseph were born two sons 
before the years of famine came, which Asenath, 
the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, bare unto 
him. . . . 

" And the seven years of plenteousness that was 
in the land of Egypt were ended. And the seven 
years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph 
had said : and the dearth was in all lands ; but in 
all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when 
all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried 
to Pharaoh for bread ; and Pharaoh said unto all 
the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph : what he saith unto 
you, do. And the famine was over all the face of 
the earth : and Joseph opened all the storehouses, 
and sold unto the Egyptians ; and the famine waxed 
sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came 
into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn ; because that 
the famine was sore in all lands/' Gen. xli. 46 — 
50, 53—57. 

It would appear upon the face of the narrative, 
that Joseph had been thirteen years in Egypt at ths 



60 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

time of his exaltation, (see xxxvii. 2). By this 
long course of trial and adversity his whole char- 
acter would be ripened for the high office to which 
God had destined him, and for the great work he 
had to do. He would also have perfectly acquired 
the language and the customs of the house of his 
bondage. 

The plenty and the famine appeared exactly as he 
had been inspired to foretel them. We have already 
remarked upon the extraordinary disturbance which 
the natural phenomena of Egypt must have sus- 
tained at this time. The nature of them we have 
now to consider. It may be safely stated that in 
Egypt and the adjacent countries one natural cause, 
and one only, could possibly have given rise to 
either of the visitations in question ; and that cause 
was rain. The abundance of it made the plenty ; the 
want of it made the famine. This is perfectly, un- 
answerably certain. 

There is a point in the history before us which 
has not been noticed. The plenty was confined to 
Egypt. The famine was in all lands. We have 
now to describe another of these strange things 
whereby Egypt in the present day still vindicates 
her claim to the title of " the land of wonders/' 
When Dr. Lepsius visited the upper portions of the 
valley of the Nile in 1843, he found engraven upon 
a cliff rising perpendicularly from the water's edge, 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 61 

at Samneh, which is far in Upper Nubia, an inscrip- 
tion dated in the 23rd year of Amun-Timseus, pur- 
porting to register the height of the overflow that 
year. Other registers are also written on the same 
rock in the reigns of his two immediate successors. 
With trifling variations they all give about the 
same height for the overflow, which averages 30 
feet above the highest point ever reached by the 
water in the present day. Sir Gardner Wilkinson 
went over the same ground three years afterwards, 
and pursued the investigation still further. He 
found above the point in question vast plateaux of 
Nile mud on both banks, but many miles away 
from the present course of the river, and as barren 
as the sand that drifted over them, except when 
they are cultivated by hand irrigation. He traced 
the same visible proofs of the far greater elevation 
of the waters in former times downwards to the bar 
of red sandstone rock that crosses the Nile at Djebel 
Silsili,in Upper Egypt, where they ceased altogether.* 
Many important conclusions may be arrived at 
from these premises. The tradition of the Egyptian 
priesthood preserved by many of the Greek authors, 
that the Nile had its source in the ocean, and 
flowed into the ocean again, -f- doubtless originated 
in the circumstance that when the first settlers 

* Trans. Roy. Soc. Let. Vol. iv. p. 93, seq. 
f Herodotus, lib. 2. e. 21, 23, 28, &c. &c. 



62 JOSEPH m EGYPT. 

in Egypt explored the valley, the waters of the 
Nile expanded themselves into a vast lake over 
what are at this day the plains of Darfur. 

The bursting of this lake took place at a period 
concerning which we are able, on monumental evi- 
dence, distinctly to say that it was after the reign 
of Sukophthis II. — the second successor of Amun 
Timseus ; and as the register of this year is the last 
of many entries, the probabilities are highly in 
favor of its occurrence but a little time afterwards. 
But Amun-Timseus was the Pharaoh whom Salatis 
expelled from Memphis, and afterwards they both 
reigned cotemporaneously : Amun-Timaeus and his 
successors in Upper Egypt and Ethiopia, and Salatis 
and his successors in the Delta and Middle Egypt. 
But again, Aphophis also was the second or third 
successor of Salatis. The times of Sukophthis II. 
and of Aphophis must, therefore, have closely ap- 
proximated. 

Let us now consider the mode in which the dis- 
ruption of this barrier must have occurred. 

It certainly was not occasioned by the cleavage 
of the rock by an earthquake, or by any other great 
accident which would have set the entire body of 
water at liberty at once. Had this been the case, the 
rush of such a tide would have swept every thing 
before it, and the valley would have been depopu- 
lated : an event which we know did not take place. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 60 

There is but one other mode possible, and that is, 
the unusual prevalence of rains in the tropical 
mountains wherein are the sources of the river. 
The effect of them would be to elevate the waters 
of this lake, so that they would come into contact 
with and undermine some mud-bank, not ordinarily 
within reach of the inundation. This would allow 
the escape, not only of the superfluous waters of the 
flood, but also of some portion of those of the lake. 
Such an increase as this of the yearly overflow 
would be highly disastrous at the present day, when 
all the artificial means for irrigation (both the 
dykes and the mounds) have been for so many years 
adjusted to one scarcely varying measure ; but at 
the remote period, now under consideration, we 
apprehend the case would be very different. The 
valley was, of necessity, but imperfectly cultivated 
any where, and it would only be in those narrow 
portions of it where the culture had already reached 
the mountains, that any mischief would be done. 
In the Delta (of which alone the inspired narrative 
seems to speak), where the cultivated surface is 
bounded on both sides by mere plains of sand, the 
only effect of this assumed disruption would have 
been, the diffusion of the teeming flood over a sur- 
face vastly more extended than in ordinary years. 
Of this circumstance the prescience of Joseph would 
direct him to take the utmost possible advantage. 



64 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

Labourers would be sent everywhere to construct, 
for these new lands, sluices of recession and other 
necessary works for their productiveness, and the 
corn that was afterwards gathered by handfuls 
would now be sown by handfuls. This is God's in- 
variable rule in all things. 

The ordinary issues of the lake in Ethiopia would 
soon relieve the broken bank from the pressure of 
the overflow, and the Nile would subside to its 
wonted volume : but a large portion of the waters 
of the low or blue Nile would still flow through the 
vast crevasse formed by the disruption^ and the sur- 
face of the lake would be lowered several feet. The 
effect of this is well known in engineering. The 
softer portions of the bank which retained the lake, 
and which were quite equal to sustain the inert 
pressure of the whole, would be worn away by the 
attrition of the currents that would now flow over 
them ; and even in the low Nile the lake would go 
on decreasing. After eight months of incessant sun 
and dry sand-winds, cracking and parching the por- 
tions of this bank that had hitherto been under 
water, the Nile would rise again. We have now no 
occasion to assume another excess of rain in the 
mountains of Ethiopia. The ordinary flood would 
all but certainly be more than the bank thus in- 
jured could sustain, and another disruption would 
still further lower the surface of the lake in Ethio- 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 65 

pia, and originate the second year of plenty in the 
Delta. 

By the repetition of this process, it is, we contend, 
no unreasonable supposition, that it would take 
seven successive annual floods to wash away entirely 
the embankments that sustained the lake of Ethio- 
pia, and to bring down the Nile to its present level, 
and that in this increase of the ordinary measure 
of the overflow, consisted the cause of the seven 
plenteous years in the Delta. 

We have now to consider the seven years of 
famine that followed them. The same phenomena 
will, we apprehend, go far to account for them also. 
On the first year, after the final subsidence of the 
lake, the annual overflow (supposing it to have been 
an ordinary one) an first reaching what was formerly 
the head of the lake, would enter an endless tissue 
of devious and intricate channels among rocks and 
mud-banks ; and through this labyrinth it would 
have to work and wind its way for hundreds of 
miles. At the same point, only in the year pre- 
ceding, the annual flood joined a vast body of 
water, and the wave of its first impulse would con- 
vey the commencement of the inundation to the 
outlet with the speed of gravitation. The far longer 
time required for threading the mazes of its new 
channel, would materially delay the appearance of 
the inundation in Egypt. Another effect would 

F 



66 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

follow from the same cause. The quantity of water 
would be greatly diminished by this longer exposure 
to the burning sun of Ethiopia. This is the case at 
all seasons of the year. The Nile at the Barash, 
which is at the bifurcation of its two mouths, is a 
much less river than the Nile at Thebes or Philae, 
at the present day. The vast flats of Nile mud, 
covering thousands of square miles which, before 
the inundation of the previous year, had been the 
bottom of the lake, would also tend, in the year we 
are supposing, yet further to diminish the annual 
overflow. They had been for many months exposed 
to the sun and wind, and must have warped and 
cracked in a manner utterly inconceivable to those 
who have not actually witnessed the phenomenon. 
The mud has risen into huge blisters. It has sunk 
into deep hollows : it has cracked into yawning 
crevasses. "We exactly describe the present appear- 
ance of the plain of Darfur, the locality in question. 
So much of the water of the inundation would be ab- 
sorbed by these hollows, that we may safely assume 
that in an ordinary year, scarcely any of it would 
pass the foot of the lake ; and, assuredly, after such 
a disturbance, it would be many years before the 
river would have so worked out the channels of its 
new course, that any thing like the usual overflow 
would reach Egypt. We are assuming here, that 
there should be no failure in the rains on the 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 67 

mountains : but in the seven years of famine there 
is every probability that such was not the case. 
li The famine was sore in all lands/' and the want 
of rain which occasioned it, would extend to the 
mountains of Ethiopia : for modern observation has 
clearly established the fact that, as to its leading 
features, the weather spans the earth in great quad- 
rants. In these circumstances, therefore, we sub- 
mit, will be found a very satisfactory solution of 
the natural difficulties connected with the seven 
years of plenty and of famine. The geological evi- 
dence of the actual occurrence of a great disturb- 
ance of the annual overflow, and the monumental 
evidence that the time of its occurrence closely 
approximated to that of the reign of Aphophis, the 
patron of Joseph, we also present as collateral proofs 
of the verity of the inspired narrative, of no light 
or unimportant character. 

We may perhaps here be permitted to answer an 
objection to such researches, which is often urged 
by excellent persons of devotional habits and con- 
templative and confiding temperaments. We want 
no confirmation to our own faith. We firmly believe 
that God is able to give seven years of plenty and 
of famine to Egypt, by a simple exercise of his own 
volition, and without the employment of natural 
phenomena at all. What good end is accomplished 

by such discoveries as these ? The answer is not far 

F 2 



68 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

to seek. The faith of these persons is not the faith 
which God demands of his people. It is a mere 
ignorant unreasoning assent to the dogma that God 
can do all things, leaving out the all-important 
limitation which the Bible applies to it : " He can- 
not deny himself." There is nothing more needful 
for man to know, than that these marvellous works 
in the days of old, were all subordinated to one rule 
or canon. There was no needless interference with 
the ordinary laws of nature. They were merely put 
into action at times before specified, in order that 
men might see God's mastery over them. We shall 
find this to be especially the case with all the 
supernatural interferences recorded in the history 
we have now to illustrate ; and therefore it much 
concerns the consistency of the Divine procedure to 
discover, that the seven years of plenty ancl famine 
were likewise of the same character. There may 
in effect have been nothing supernatural in the 
entire transaction, beyond the prediction, and the 
divine wisdom imparted to Joseph in taking ad- 
vantage of them. Yet is this no Neology, but Divi- 
nity in its best and loftiest sense. 

" Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in 
Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look 
one upon another ? And he said, Behold ! I have 
heard that there is corn in Egypt ; get you down 
thither and buy for us from thence, that we may 
live and not die. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 69 

" And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy 
corn in Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, 
Jacob sent not with his brethren ; for he said, Lest 
peradventure mischief befal him. And the sons of 
Israel came to buy corn among those that came ; 
for the famine was in the land of Canaan/' Gen. 
xlii. 1—5. 

The scene depicted in this concise narrative is a 
very animated one. The sandy paths across the 
desert of Suez are crowded with caravans of the 
inhabitants of Canaan, and their beasts of burden, 
laden with the valuable products of their country, 
and with silver and gold in rings, and all intent 
upon the purchase of corn. It was thus that the 
riches of Canaan flowed into Egypt. We are now 
in the first year of the famine only, and already the 
current has set in. 

" And Joseph was ruling (exercising kingly power) 
over the land ; and he it was that sold to all the 
people of the land : and Joseph's brethren came 
and bowed themselves down before him with their 
faces to the earth. . . . And Joseph remembered 
the dreams that he had dreamed of them." ver. 6, 9. 

Twenty-one years had elapsed since the last inter- 
view of Joseph with his brethren. Then the hard 
features of the reckless hunters of the desert frowned 
fiercely upon a stripling bound and helpless, and 
their hands grasped their murderous weapons, so 



70 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

bitter was the envy that his prophetic dream had 
roused in them. They threw him into a pit to perish 
with hunger and thirst ; they were debating as to 
the policy of drawing him up to despatch him, when 
the appearance of the Ishmaelite caravan and the 
avarice of Judah changed their determination into 
that which was even still more heartless and cruel- 
Now, a company of wrinkled and grey-bearded way- 
faring men, they bowed themselves to the earth be- 
fore the regal state of their former victim ; — the 
very consummation at which the prophetic dreams 
that had exasperated their envy and rage against him 
had. pointed ; so that they had themselves fulfilled 
the divine intimation, and that, by the act of daring 
wickedness whereby they hoped to render it impos- 
sible. cc There are many devices in a man's heart, 
nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." 
Prov. xix. 21 . No wonder that " Joseph remem- 
bered the dreams that he had dreamed of them/' 

" And Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew 
them, but made himself strange unto them, and 
spake roughly unto them : and he said unto them, 
Whence come ye ? And they said, From the land 
of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his 
brethren, but they knew him not. . . . 

" And Joseph said unto them, Ye are spie^ , to 
see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And 
they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 71 

are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons ; 
we are true men, thy servants are no spies. And he 
said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of 
the land are ye come. And they said, Thy servants 
are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in theland 
of Canaan, and behold the youngest is this day with 
our father, and one is not. And Joseph said unto 
them, This is what I spake unto you, saying, Ye 
are spies. Hereby ye shall be proved ; as Pharaoh 
lives ye shall not go hence, except your youngest 
brother come hither. Send one of you, and let him 
fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, 
that your words may be proved, whether there be 
any truth in you ; or else, as Pharaoh lives, surely 
ye are spies. And he put them all together in 
ward for three days/' Verses 7 — 19. 

We have no regal monuments of the epoch now 
before us. Joseph evidently sate as a king in the 
gate, when his brethren were brought into his pre- 
sence. It can therefore be only on monuments that 
discourse of the actions of kings that we can hope 
for any illustration of the passage. For these we 
must descend to a somewhat later period. A scene 
not uncommon in the civil wars that ended in the 
union of the two Egypts under one crown, repre- 
sents the reception given to an embassy from the 
opposite faction. The ambassadors are called spies, 
and beaten, before they are admitted into the pre- 



72 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

sence of tbe king. In Egypt every thing was pre- 
scriptive. There can hardly be a doubt that this 
was a point of court etiquette. If it were so, 
Joseph's brethren, we may be sure, were subjected 
to this discipline. In effect, it is not at all probable 
that a company, upon which such a charge was im- 
puted as that made by Joseph against his brethren, 
would in the ancient world have escaped with no 
more grievous corporal inflictions than those of 
bonds and imprisonment. Even in the days of the 
Romans, the entire tone of society, and the collective 
mode of thought, would render it improbable that 
any individual, however exalted in rank, would be 
committed to prison upon a serious charge without 
being previously examined by scourging. When we 
call to mind the cruel wrong that Joseph had suf- 
fered from the unfeeling men who were now in his 
power, and also that he was utterly ignorant of the 
design of poor Reuben for his deliverance, we shall 
perceive that even if such were the case, his 
rigorous deportment would be amply justified by 
the circumstances. The precaution taken by Jo- 
seph on this memorable occasion would also be ren- 
dered needful by the political relations of the king- 
dom of Lower Egypt in the times of Aphophis. The 
Arvadites and Hittites were the two clans of the 
Canaanitish confederacy by whose aid the Menche- 
rian Pharaohs had been expelled from Memphis. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 73 

But with the other Canaanitish nations they were 
frequently at war. The Canaanites in Egypt even 
confederated with the Egyptians for the purpose of 
invading Canaan. Of this fact we have the irre- 
fragable evidence of the monuments. It was there- 
fore highly important to the safety of the throne of 
Pharaoh that this vast tide of immigrants from 
Canaan should be closely watched, lest under the 
pretext of purchasing corn, some formidable force 
might be gradually introduced, and thus a double 
danger arise from within as well as from without. 
Under these circumstances, there would be nothing 
at all remarkable in the rough greeting wherewith 
Joseph challenged his brethren. It was the ordi- 
nary course with all large bodies of travellers from 
Canaan. 

" And Joseph said to them the third day, This do, 
and live, for I fear God, If ye be true, let one of 
your brethren be bound in the house of your prison ; 
go ye, carry corn for the famine of your houses. 
But bring your youngest brother unto me ; so shall 
your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And 
they assented. And they said one to another, We 
are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we 
saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, 
and we would not hear ; therefore is this distress 
come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, 
Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against 



74 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

the child ; and ye would not hear ? Therefore be- 
hold also his blood is required. And they knew 
not that Joseph understood them : for he spake 
unto them by an interpreter. And he turned him- 
self about from them and wept, and returned to 
them again, and spake unto them [repeating his 
decision], and took from them Simeon, and bound 
him before their eyes/' Gren. xlii. 18 — 24. 

The brethren of Joseph had now been for three 
days in prison, expecting hourly to be led forth to 
suffer an ignominious death at the hands of the 
public executioner. It was by this severe discipline 
that the compunctious visitings, (which all the an- 
guish of their father, of which for so many years they 
had witnessed the daily proofs, had failed to awa- 
ken), first wrung their flinty hearts. It is quite 
clear from this passage that Reuben, as well as his 
father, had been completely deceived by the strata- 
gem of the torn and bloody coat ; nevertheless the 
conduct of this patriarch on the occasion, exactly 
squares with the general tone of his character (see 
Gen. xlix. 3, 4), and offers another internal evidence, 
if such be wanted, of the genuineness of the history 
before us. He did not (as was his clear duty) ap- 
prize his father of the lawless violence of his bre- 
thren towards Joseph, of which he himself was 
cognizant. Had he done so, it would have led to 
inquiries, whence doubtless the whole truth would 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 75 

have been elicited. It is a vain question to ask in 
reply, How then would the purposes of God have 
been fulfilled by Joseph ? It is perfectly true that 
Grod was pleased to accomplish them by the moral 
infirmity of Reuben, as well as by the relentless 
cruelty of Simeon and the cold calculating avarice 
of Judah. Nevertheless Simeon and Judah, yea, 
and Reuben also, shall each bear his own sin. Man 
can incur God's displeasure, but he cannot counter- 
work his purposes. 

It is sufficiently evident from the passage before 
us, that Joseph used the Egyptian language in this 
colloquy, and that it was unintelligible to his bre- 
thren. So clearly is this implied by the scope of 
the text, and so unanswerably is it demonstrated by 
the etymology of the word rightly translated tc in- 
terpreter/' and also by the comparison of the two 
languages, for which we have such ample materials, 
that we can only regret that an opposite statement, 
by commentators generally well entitled to the con- 
fidence of their readers, should have rendered this 
rectification needful.* 

u Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with 
corn, and restore every man's money into his sack ; 
and to give every man provision for the way : and 
thus did he unto them. And they laded their 
asses with corn and departed thence. And as one 

* See, inter alias^ Bagster's Comprehensive Bible on Gen. xlii. 23. 



76 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

of them opened his sack to give his ass provender 
at the resting-place [in the desert] he saw his silver 
[in rings] for behold it was at his sack's mouth. 
And he said unto his brethren, My money is re- 
stored ; and, lo, it is even in my sack : and their 
heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying 
one to another, What is this that Grod hath done 
unto us ? 

" And they came unto Jacob their father unto the 
land of Canaan, and told him all that befel unto 
them ; saying, The man, who is the lord of the land, 
spake roughly to us, and took us for spies of the 
country. And we said unto him, We are true men ; 
we are no spies : we be twelve brethren, sons of 
our father ; one is not, and the youngest is this day 
with our father in the land of Canaan. And the 
man, the lord of the country, said unto us, Hereby 
shall I know that ye are true men ; leave one of 
your brethren here with me, and take food for the 
famine of your households, and be gone : and bring 
your youngest brother unto me : then shall I know 
that ye are no spies, but ye are true men : so will I 
deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffic in the 
land. 

" And it came to pass, as they emptied their sacks, 
that, behold, every man's bundle of money was in 
his sack : and when both they and their father saw 
the bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 77 

their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved 
of my children : Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, 
and ye will take Benjamin away : all these things 
are against me. And Reuben spake unto his father, 
saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to 
thee : deliver him into my hand, and I will bring 
him to thee again. And he said, My son shall not 
go down with you ; for his brother is dead, and he 
is left alone : if mischief befal him by the way in 
the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey 
hairs with sorrow to the grave. 

" And the famine was sore in the land. And it 
came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn 
which they had brought up out of Egypt, their fa- 
ther said unto them, Go again, buy us a little food. 
And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did 
solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see 
my face, except your brother be with you. If thou 
wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and 
buy thee food : but if thou wilt not send him, we 
will not go down : for the man said unto us, Ye 
shall not see my face, except your brother be with 
you. And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with 
me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a bro- 
ther ? And they said, the man asked us straitly of 
our state, and of our kindred, saying, Is your father 
yet alive? have ye another brother? and -we told 
him according to the tenor of these words : could 



78 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

we certainly know that he would say, Bring your 
brother down ? And Judah said unto Israel his 
father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and 
go ; that we may live and not die, both we, and 
thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for 
him ; of my hand shalt thou require him : if I 
bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, 
then let me bear the blame for ever. For except 
we had lingered, surely now we had returned this 
second time. And their father Israel said unto 
them, If it must be so now, do this ; take of the 
best fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry 
down the man a present, a little balm, and a little 
honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds : and 
take double money in your hand ; and the money 
that was brought again in the mouth of your sacks, 
carry it again your hand : peradventure it was an 
oversight: take also your brother, and arise, go 
again unto the man : and God Almighty give you 
mercy before the man, that he may send away your 
other brother, and Benjamin. If I be bereaved of 
my children, I am bereaved/' Gen. xlii. 25, to Glen, 
xliii. 14. 

The inspired narrative now leaves the land of 
Egypt, we only quote it here for the sake of 
continuity. The workings of an evil conscience 
in the brethren of Joseph, found kindred feelings 
in the advanced age and infirmities of their father. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 79 

They were all afraid when they saw the linked 
rings of silver which they had taken down to Egypt 
to buy corn, returned at the mouth of their sacks. 
These chains of silver (Heb. rmi2 " chains/' " that 
which binds/') are frequently depicted in the tombs, 
and have even been found there. The custom of 
carrying the precious metals for the purposes of 
traffic in linked rings or chains was universal in 
ancient Egypt, where coined money was unknown 
until the days of the Ptolemies ; and remained in 
occasional use throughout the world, until far into 
the middle ages. 

The present prepared by Jacob and his sons for 
the ruler of Egypt, admits of so remarkable an 
illustration from the existing monuments of the 
latter kingdom, that it is not possible to pass them 
by on this occasion, even though they should lead 
us a little further into verbal criticism than com- 
ports exactly with our present design. 

We will take the several articles enumerated in 
the order of their occurrence, — 

1 . Balm >*)!£. The resin or gum that exudes from 
the wounded bark of a tree : whence its Hebrew 
name, which means a wound or the issue (ichor) 
from a wound. Gums of many kinds, principally 
fragrant ones, are often found in the tombs of Egypt, 
both deposited in jars, and used in the embalming 
of mummies. 



80 JOSEPH IN EGYPT. 

2. Honey. 27^1 (debash) It is well known that 
this word signified the thickened juice of grapes 
and dates, as well as the honey of bees. In the 
hieroglyphic account of the so-called expulsion of 
the shepherds from Egypt, a group appears in the 
catalogues of the spoils taken after each victory, 
which is evidently the same word. Jjf*q tabkh * or 

^$ bkh. In the latter form it is still read in the 
Coptic texts fivKKi, "ripe dates." Many thousands 
of jars of this substance are enumerated among the 
spoils taken, or the tribute exacted from the Ca- 
naanites. "We could not have a clearer proof that 
it was imported from Canaan into Egypt, where it 
was in great request. 

3. Spices. rrMDl. This is a Hebrew word, signi- 
fying, " that which is pounded small/' The Egyp- 
tians were very particular in this branch of the 
apothecary's art. It was performed generally by 
female slaves, by grinding the substance to be tritu- 
rated between two hard stones. So accurately was 
the process performed, that in the vast quantity of 
spices found in a mummy of a high class which was 
opened at Leeds twenty years ago, not a particle 
could be discovered larger than the rest, though 
diligent search was made for it. The substance 
here specified was prepared in Canaan. 

4. Myrrh tab wrongly translated. It should have 

* There was no d in the Egyptian language. 



JOSEPH. 81 

been rendered Ladanum, the Xctiavov of the Greeks. 
It is the gum that exudes from the Cistus Ladanifera, 
a tree found in Canaan at this day. This perfume 
was in high esteem in ancient Egypt. There is now 
no occasion to appeal to learned authorities in proof 
of its frequent use there. It has frequently been 
found in the tombs, and its well-known odour was 
powerfully predominant in the mixture of spices 
with which the Leeds mummy was embalmed. Its 
appellative in hieroglyphics completes the proof. 
This will, we believe, be found in a group which is 
well ascertained to mean " perfume " of some sort, 
but to its assumed phonetic value, no equivalent 
has been hitherto found, either in Coptic or any 
other language, It is written £^\ It or, £g=|f ntl, 
or |-|£§ hit The initial character of this group 
resembles greatly one of the homophons of the letter 
s. ^ ; so much so, that Champollion confounded the 
two, both in his copies and his readings ; — never- 
theless the comparison of many repetitions of this 
common group on the monuments themselves has 
convinced me, that it represents an object altogether 
different from that depicted by the character with 
which it has been supposed to be identical. I be- 
lieve that its power was I, and that it was inter- 
preted by the mouth <^^> at the end of the group. 
It was not possible to write them thus ^^ , because 
then the mouth would be read as a mere grammatical 

G 



82 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

form. Had the group been written thus I=, that 
would have equivocated with another group of alto- 
gether different meaning. These are reasons amply 
sufficient for the metathesis which has changed Itn 
into nil, |2=°- We believe it therefore to be the 
hieroglyphic appellative of Ladanum, a word which 
the Greeks adopted without change. This perfume 
was largely used in the worship of the gods of Egypt, 
and vast quantities of it are repeatedly specified as 
part of the tribute exacted by Amosis from the 
Canaanites in the hieroglyphic record of his expul- 
sion of the lower Egyptians from Memphis.* 

5. Nuts D'Oton. i. e. Pistacio nuts. TheSe are not 
the produce of Egypt, but jar soft hern have repeatedly 
been found in the tombs. 

6 Almonds. These are likewise in the same 
category. Their existence in the tombs, and the 
unfitness of the soil of Egypt for the growth of the 
trees that produce them, render it certain that both 
nuts and almonds were among the articles which 
ancient Egypt imported from Canaan. 

" And the men took that present, and they took 
double money in their hands, [i. e., with them] and 
Benjamin ; and rose up and went down to Egypt, 
and stood before Joseph. 

" And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he 

* Generally called the granite sanctuary of Karnak. It is now in the 
Louvre at Paris. 



JOSEPH. 83 

said to the steward of his house, pp 3 bring these, men 
home and slay abundantly and prepare ; for these 
men shall dine with me at noon. And the man did 
as Joseph bade, and brought the men into Joseph's 
house. And the men were afraid because they 
were brought into Joseph's house ; and they said, — 
Because of the money that was returned in our sacks 
at the first time are we brought in ; that he may 
■seek occasion against us [lit. entangle us] and fall 
upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our asses." 
Gen. xliii. 15 — 18. 

To detain one of the enemy upon a feigned civil 
charge has been a common stratagem of war at all 
times. The men evidently supposed themselves 
suspected by Joseph of belonging to some Canaan- 
itish nation at Avar with Phiops, and that they had 
been trepanned by the ruse of the returned money. 
They now looked, on their arrival at Joseph's house, 
to be at once stripped of their garments and the rest 
of their property, and set to work with the other 
slaves and prisoners of war, that in the day-time 
performed the menial offices of the establishment, 
and at night were chained in oval brick dungeons, 
in the square enclosure that surrounded the palace. 
Such was doubtless the internal economy of Joseph's 
house, in common with the rest of the princes of 
Egypt. 

A very mistaken notion in regard of the asses 

G 2 



84 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



mentioned in the text before us has taken possession 
of the minds of most scripture readers, mainly created 
by the attempts at pictorial illustrations made in 
the middle ages. It is assumed that ten men with 
ten asses only went into Egypt on this occasion, 
whereas, in all probability, the caravan of the 
Patriarchs consisted of many attendants besides 
themselves, and of some hundreds of asses. This 
animal was a valuable property in Egypt, and often 
appears among the properties of her ancient princes, 
as in the following, from the tomb of the prince 
Hotp-ols at Sakkarah.* 




" And they came near to him that was over the 
house of Joseph j=j^ and they spake with him at the 
door of the house/' Gen. xliii. 19. 



No. 15 of the plan of Lepsius. 



JOSEPH. So 

The present passage is adduced by some commen- 
tators, in proof that the languages of Egypt and 
Canaan were, in these remote times, so much alike, 
that the inhabitants of the two countries could 
understand each other. This is a mistake of inad- 
vertency which a very superficial attention to the 
context would have sufficed to expose. The man 
with whom Joseph's brethren conversed, held in 
Joseph's house exactly the same office as Joseph 
himself had held in the house of Potiphar on his 
first arrival in Egypt ; and if this office were held 
by a Canaanite slave in the one case, why not in 
the other also ? Infidelity has found more pretexts 
in loose unsatisfactory glosses like this than in any 
other source of error that could be named. 

"And [Joseph's brethren] said, Sir, we came 
indeed down at the first time to buy food : — and it 
came to pass when we came to the inn, that we 
opened our sacks, and behold, every man's silver 
was at the mouth of his sack ; our silver in full 
weight : and we have brought it again with us : 
and other silver have we brought with us to buy 
food : we cannot tell who put our silver in our 
sacks. And he said, Peace be unto you, fear not ; 
your God and the God of your fathers hath given 
you treasure in your sacks ; I had your silver. 
And he brought Simeon out to them." Gen. xliii. 
19—23. 



86 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT, 



The weighing of silver in rings is a common sub- 
ject in the tombs. The balance was the medium 
of adjustment of the entire traffic of the ancient 
world. The annexed design is from the tomb of 
Nahrai at Benihassan. 




Simeon had been selected by Joseph to remain 
in prison as a hostage for the return of his brethren, 
because he was the originator and ringleader of the 
lawless violence through which Joseph had been 
sold into Egypt. That such was the case appears 
very evidently from the comparison of other pas- 
sages, and from the general character of Simeon, 
which drew down upon him his father's curse. (See 
Gen. xlix. 5 — 7.) We are too apt to forget the ex- 
tent to which we offend God when (under any pre- 
text) we indulge the fierce and brutal passions of 
our natures against our fellow-men. This he has 
clearly proclaimed in his word. A thousand and a 



JOSEPH. 87 

thousand times has he thundered the same truth 
in the unwilling ear of man by the terrors of his 
Providence. To how many slave-holders, to how 
many school -masters, yea, proh pudor, to how 
many parents, who, after the indulgence of their 
fierce passions upon their victims, Ci wipe their 
mouths and say, We have done no evil," does God 
address the cleaving malediction of the dying 
patriarch : " Cursed be their wrath, for it was 
fierce, and their anger for it was cruel ! " 

" And the man brought the men into Joseph's 
house, and gave water, and they washed their feet ; 
and he gave their asses provender. 

" And they made ready the present against Jo- 
seph came at noon, for they heard that they should 
eat bread there. 

" And when Joseph came home, they brought 
him the present which was in their hand into the 
house, and bowed themselves to him to the e arth. 
And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is 
your father well : the old man of whom ye spake ? 
Is he yet alive ? And they answered, Thy servant 
our father is ingood health ; he is yet alive. And 
they bowed down their heads and made obeisance. 
And he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Ben- 
jamin, his mother's son, and said, Is this your 
younger brother of whom ye spake unto me ? And 
he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son. And 



88 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



Joseph went forth in haste, for his bowels did yearn 
upon his brother, and he sought where to weep, 
and he entered into his chamber and wept there/' 
Gen. xliii. 24—30. 

This passage needs no illustrative remarks. Its 
comment is written in the hearts of all men. It 
finds its interpretation in the bosom of every child 
of Adam. " One touch of nature makes the whole 
world kin ! " 

" And [Joseph] washed his face, and went forth 
[from his chamber] and refrained himself. And he 
said, Set forth bread ; and they set forth for him 
by himself, and for them [his brethren] by them- 
selves, and for the Egyptians which did eat with 
him by themselves/' Ver. 31, 32. 

The tombs of ancient Egypt fully illustrate the 
custom to which this passage alludes. Before the 
master and mistress of the house (when both sate 
down to the same banquet) was placed a table piled 
with bread in loaves and cakes, and in endless 



(THTTfTft 




/IWWNN 



JOSEPH. 89 

variety of forms. The baker's art was sedulously 
cultivated in Egypt, and, wonderful to tell, some of 
its productions remain to this day. Baskets of bread 
have been frequently found in the tombs. The 
preceding examples of tables of bread are all from 
tombs of the era of Joseph or somewhat earlier. 
The arrangement of the guests, according to our 
text, agrees also exactly with the indication of these 
pictures. The heads of the house and their children 
and dependents sate at separate tables. 

u Because the Egyptians might not eat bread with 
the Hebrews ; for that is an abomination to the 
Egyptians/' Verse 32. 

For the illustration of this passage, there is no 
necessity to assume that the impurity of the Hebrews 
consisted in their being shepherds, by ordinary oc- 
cupation, with the Chaldee, the Greek, and other 
ancient commentators. This gloss encumbers the 
narrative with a formidable difficulty, inasmuch as 
Pharaoh greatly favored the Canaanites, and ad- 
mitted as his courtiers Canaanite shepherds, both 
by birth and descent. It was in religion only that 
the shepherd was unclean in Egypt. Foreigners 
generally were likewise accounted unclean and 
unfit for any intercourses beyond those of war and 
of traffic, by her utterly intolerant mythology. The 
name of a foreign nation, written in hieroglyphics, 
is always accompanied by some opprobrious epithet, 



90 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

and determined by a man in bonds. The following 
are examples: ^?|l "Arvad." ^f^^fQ^Xi "the 
overthrown of Sheth/' the Moabites. Ife |||| " the 
wicked race of Cush," Ethiopia. All foreigners, 
and at all times, whether of peace or war, are thus 
written on the monuments. We may therefore 
clearly infer that it would be accounted pollution 
to sit at table with them. 

" And they sate before him, the first-born ac- 
cording to his birthright, and the youngest accord- 
ing to his youth : and the men marvelled one at 
another. And he sent forth portions unto them 
from before him : but Benjamin's mess was five 
times so much as any of theirs. And they drank 
and were merry with him/' Verses 33, 34. 

The monumental illustrations of this custom also 
are as beautifully complete as any of those that 
have yet engaged our attention. The annexed en- 
graving represents the tri-monthly banquet held in 
honor of the dead, in the noble hall of the tomb of 
the prince and chief physician Nahrai, at Beni 
Hassan. He was attached to the court of Pharaoh 
Amenemes II., who reigned in Egypt about a hun- 
dred years before the times of Joseph. The enor- 
mous quantity and variety of the viands are no 
exaggerations. Whole crowds of retainers waited 
without the hall to receive their portions of food at 
these banquets. The vaults underneath the hall 



92 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



were of dimensions large enough for the mummies 
of all the retainers of the house of Nahrai ; and all 
persons having relatives in the tomb were entitled to 
partake of the banquets. Within the hall the entire 
family of Nahrai attended upon their parents in the 
order of their primogeniture. The observance ap- 
pears to have been — the youngest received the dish 
from the cooks and passed it to the child next in 
age. In this way it passed from hand to hand to 
the first-born, who stood before the father, and 
served the dish to him. The master of the house 
first cut off a portion for himself and the mother 
of the family, if she sate at the same table with 
him. In the banquets of Nahrai she sate at a sepa- 
rate table, and was attended in the same manner 
by her daughters, probably because she was a prin- 
cess in her own right. The dish or joint was then 
placed by the first-born at the feet of his parents, 




JOSEPH. 93 

and the whole family remained standing until they 
had eaten. It was then once more presented by 
the first-born to the father, who cut from it, and 
placed upon slices or cakes of bread portions for 
each of his children, which being distributed, and 
another dish served to the father, the whole party 
sate down together — the children to eat of the first 
dish, the father of the second. The retainers of the 
house were afterwards served by the domestics, but 
always in the presence of Nahrai himself.* That 
similar state and ceremony were observed in the 
banquet which Joseph gave to his brethren, there 
cannot be a doubt. They handed the dishes to him 
and he sent them their portions on the bread which 
was piled before him. It will be noticed, that the 
bread on the table before Nahrai is cut in slices. 

" And [Joseph] commanded him that was over 
his house, saying, Fill the men's sacks [pack-sad- 
dles] with provision as much as they can carry, and 
put every man's money in his sack's mouth. And 
put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's mouth of 
the youngest, and his own money. And he did 
according to the word that Joseph had spoken. As 
soon as the morning was light, the men were sent 

* In proof of the number of persons entitled to partake of these ban- 
quets, it may be mentioned, that in the tomb of Amenemes, which is in 
the immediate vicinity of that of Nahrai, 1000 mummies of soldiers who 
had fallen in the wars with Cush, were deposited in its vaults at one 
time. 



94 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

away, they and their asses. And when they were 
gone out of the city and not yet far oiF — Gen. xliv. 
1—4. 

This must have been a city on the north-eastern 
border, adjacent to the desert which divides Egypt 
from Canaan. On, or Heliopolis, is so situated, and 
as it is the only city named in the inspired narra- 
tive, the proof that it was the scene of these trans- 
actions is as conclusive as if the fact had been for- 
mally stated. 

" Joseph said unto his steward, Up, follow after 
the men ; and when thou dost overtake them, say 
unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for 
good ? Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, 
and whereby indeed he divineth ? ye have done 
evil in so doing. And he overtook them, and he 
spake unto them these same words. And they said 
unto him, Wherefore saith my lord these words? 
God forbid that thy servants should do according to 
this thing : behold, the money, which we -found in 
our sacks' mouths, we brought again unto thee out 
of the land of Canaan : how then should we steal 
out of thy Lord's house silver or gold ? With whom- 
soever of thy servants it be found, both let him die, 
and we also will be my lord's bondmen. And he 
said, Now also let it be according unto your words : 
he with whom it is found shall be my servant ; and 
ye shall be blameless. Then they speedily took 



JOSEPH. 95 

down every man his sack to the ground, and opened 
every man his sack. And he searched, and began 
at the eldest, and left at the youngest : and the cup 
was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they rent 
their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and re- 
turned to the city. And Judah and his brethren 
came to Joseph's house ; for he was yet there : and 
they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph 
said unto them, What deed is this that ye have 
done? wot ye not that such a man as I can cer- 
tainly divine ? And Judah said, What shall we say 
unto my lord ? what shall we speak ? or how shall 
we clear ourselves ? Grod hath found out the ini- 
quity of thy servants : behold, we are my lord's 
servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup 
is found. And he said, Grod forbid that I should do 
so : but the man in whose hand the cup is found, 
he shall be my servant ; and as for you, get you up 
in peace unto your father. Then Judah came near 
unto him, and said, Oh my lord, let thy servant, I 
pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let 
not thine anger burn against thy servant : for thou 
art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, 
saying, Have ye a father or a brother ? And we 
said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, 
and a child of his old age, a little one ; and his 
brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, 
and his father loveth him. And thou saidst unto 



96 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

thy servants. Bring him down unto me, that I may 
set mine eyes upon him. And we said unto my 
lord, The lad cannot leave his father : for if he 
should leave his father, his father would die. And 
thou saidst unto thy servants, Except your youngest 
brother come down with you, ye shall see my face 
no more. And it came to pass when we came up 
unto thy servant my father, we told him the words 
of my lord. And our father said, Go again, and 
buy us a little food. And we said, We cannot go 
down : if our youngest brother be with us, then 
wil 7 we go down : for we may not see the man's 
face, except our youngest brother be with us. And 
thy servant my father said unto us, Ye know that 
my wife bare me two sons : and the one went out 
from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces ; 
and I saw him not since : and if ye take this also 
from me, and mischief befal him, ye shall bring 
down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Now 
therefore when I come to thy servant my father, 
and the lad be not with us ; seeing that his life is 
bound up in the lad's life ; it shall come to pass, 
when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he 
will die : and thy servants shall bring down the 
grey hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to 
the grave. For thy servant became surety for the 
lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not unto 
thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for 



JOSEPH. 97 

ever. Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant 
abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my lord ; 
and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how 
shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with 
me ? lest peradventure I shall see the evil that shall 
come on my father. Then Joseph could not refrain 
himself before all them that stood by him ; and he 
cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And 
there stood no man with him, while Joseph made 
himself known unto his brethren. And he wept 
aloud : and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh 
heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am 
Joseph : doth my father yet live/' Gen. xliv. 4. to 
xlv. 3. 

Here again we have no need of Archaic illustra- 
tion or modern criticism. As long as man shall 
remain embodied on this earth, so long shall the 
simple unpretending truthfulness of this narrative 
touch his heart. 

" And his brethren could not answer him, for 
they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph 
said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray 
you. And they came near. And he said, I am 
Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. 
Now therefore be not grieved nor angry with your- 
selves, that ye sold me hither : for God did send me 
before you to preserve life. For these two years 
hath the famine been in the land : and yet there are 

H 



98 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

five years, in which there shall be neither ploughing 
nor harvest/' ver. 3 — 6. 

This passage clearly points out the cause of the 
famine. The ploughing in Egypt takes place just 
as the waters of the inundation reach the field. In 
these disastrous years the river scarcely rose above 
its wonted level. There was no ploughing, because 
there was no water wherewith to irrigate. For the 
same reason, there was no harvest. 

" And God sent me before you to preserve you a 
posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a 
great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent 
lire hither, but God ; and he hath made me a father 
to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler 
throughout all the land of Egypt/' ver. 7, 8. 

These words are not the apologetic extenuation 
of the perpetrators of a foul wrong, when, after 
years of impunity they are suddenly confronted 
with the victim of their misdoings : they are ad- 
dressed by the victim to his oppressors, as abashed 
and conscience-stricken they writhe in the grasp 
of his absolute power over them, and grovel in the 
dust before him. In the annals of Greece, of Rome, 
of the Middle Ages, of all Heathendom, Pagan and 
Christian, there is nothing so noble as this 1 Lord, 
what shall man be, when thy Holy Spirit hath 
through long discipline expelled from his soul the 
mist and taint of his birth-sin, and brought forth 



JOSEPH. 99 

clearly and sharply the lineaments of Thine own 
image, wherein thou didst at first create him ! 

" Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto 
him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me 
the lord of all Egypt : come down unto me, tarry 
not : and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, 
and thou shalt be near unto me, thou and thy chil- 
dren, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, 
and thy herds, and all that thou hast ; and there 
will I minister food unto thee (for yet there are five 
years of famine) ; lest thou, and thine household, 
and all that thou hast come to poverty/' Gen. xlv, 
9—11. 

This was no chimerical fear. The same divine 
prescience in Joseph foresaw both the famine and 
its consequences. The impoverishment of the princes 
of Egypt, and of the petty kings of Canaan, by this 
fearful visitation, and the important consequences 
of both, are distinctly traceable, amid the dim sha- 
dows that conceal the history of mankind at these 
remote periods. 

The word Goshen V^ we have elsewhere ascer- 
tained to signify a flower* and to be the epithet 
originally of the eastern portion of the Delta ; but 
afterwards to have been applied to the whole of 
this division of Egypt, in exactly the same manner 

* The Monumental History of Egypt, vol. ii. Binns and Goodwin,. 
Bath. 

H 2 



100 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

as Ramses, which was the name of a city on the 
extreme western border of the Delta. 

" And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my 
brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh 
unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my 
glory in Egypt, and of all ye have seen ; and ye 
shall haste and bring down my father hither. 

" And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck 
and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. More- 
over he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon 
them : and after that his brethren talked with 
him/' ver. 12—15. 

This passage admits of no comment. " Lives 
there a man of soul so dead," as to read it without 
emotion ? it is but vanity to attempt to excite it in 
him by any amplification. 

" And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's 
house, [even the] saying, Joseph's brethren are 
come : and it was good in the eyes of Pharaoh and 
of his servants/' ver. 16. 

" And Pharoah said unto Joseph, Say unto thy 
brethren, This do ye ; lade your beasts, and go, 
get you unto the land of Canaan ; and take your 
father and your households, and come unto me : 
and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, 
and ye shall eat the fat of the land. 

" Now thou [Joseph] art commanded, this do ye ; 
take ye waggons out of the land of Egypt for 



JOSEPH. 101 

your little ones, and for your wives, and bring 
your father, and come. Also regard not your stuff ; 
for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours/' 
ver. 17—20. 

" And the children of Israel did so : and Joseph 
gave them waggons, according to the commandment 
of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. 
To all of them he gave each man changes of rai- 
ment ; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred rings 
of silver and five changes of raiment. 

" And to his father he sent thus : ten asses laden 
with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses 
laden with corn and bread, and prepared meat for 
his father by the way." ver. 23. 

Our engraving of the banquet of Nahrai (above, 
p. 91), has already thrown light upon this passage : 
a further illustration would be supplied by one of the 
bills of fare of the feasts for the dead, which remain 
to this day inscribed on the walls of all the prin- 
cipal tombs of Egypt. In that of Eimei at Grhizeh, 
who was one of the princes of Suphis, no fewer than 
98 dishes are directed to be set forth in the monthly 
and semi-monthly banquets. 

Many more, equally striking, might also be col- 
lected from the same sources of knowledge, of the 
high perfection to which the culinary art had at- 
tained in Egypt in Joseph's days, giving entire veri- 



102 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

similitude and consistency to the present prepared 
by him for his aged father. 

" So he sent his brethren away, and they de- 
parted : and he said unto them, See that ye fall not 
out by the way/' ver. 24. 

This caution would be greatly needed by the 
troop of rough, wild, impulsive men to whom it was 
addressed. Even to this day the governments of 
Egypt, Syria, and other countries bordering on the 
desert, are felt to be an intolerable restraint to the 
Arab rangers of the sand, and the return of a cara- 
van of them to their native wastes is too often sig- 
nalised by violent and sanguinary quarrels. Joseph's 
brethren had much to resent, and much to forbear, 
among themselves. In the absence of Joseph's cau- 
tion, a bloody encounter would probably have been 
the issue of the bitter recriminations wherewith 
they would have wreaked on each other the re- 
sentful feelings that the recent exposure of their 
villanies had excited in them. 

" And they went up out of Egypt, and came unto 
the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and 
told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is go- 
vernor over all the land of Egypt. And his heart 
fainted, for he believed them not. And they told 
him all the words of Joseph which he had said unto 
them : and when he saw the waggons which Joseph 
sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father 



JOSEPH. 103 

revived. And Israel said, It is enough : Joseph my 
son is yet alive : I will go and see him before I die/' 
Gen. xlv. 24—28. 

" I had fainted unless I had believed to see the 
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
Wait on the Lord ; be of good courage, and he shall 
strengthen thine heart : wait, I say, on the Lord ! " 
Psalm xxxvii. 13, 14. 

K And Israel took his journey, with all that he 
had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices 
unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake 
unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, 
Jacob, Jacob. And he said. Here am I. And he 
said, I am God, the God of thy father : fear not to 
go down into Egypt ; for I will there make of thee 
a great nation : I will go down before thee into 
Egypt ; and I will also surely bring thee up again ; 
and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes/' 
Gen. xlvi. 1 — 4. 

It was at Beer-sheba that Abraham, after the ratifi- 
cation of his covenant with Abimelech, had, in token 
thereof, planted a tree by the well, which, from this 
circumstance, he named " the well of the oath/' and 
" called upon the name of the Lord the everlasting 
God : the well by this token was confirmed to him 
and to his seed after him for a perpetual possession. 
Gen. xxi. 25 — 34. It was at Beer-sheba that the Lord 
appeared unto Isaac, and solemnly repeated to him 



104 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the promise that he had at the first made to his 
father Abraham. In consequence Isaac also builded 
an altar there, and called upon the name of the 
Lord. Gen. xxvi. 23 — 25. Again, it was at Beer- 
sheba that Jacob himself had received from his 
father Isaac the parting prophetic benediction which 
conferred upon him, to the exclusion of Esau, the 
inheritance of the promise, to obtain which Abram 
their father had left Ur of the Chaldees. Gen. xxviii. 
1—5, 10. The transaction therefore recorded in 
the passage before us was no light matter, neither 
was this explicit repetition of the promise in a 
place thus specially consecrated to its ratification, 
and under the wonderful circumstances in which 
Israel now sojourned at Beer-sheba, a common or 
insignificant event. It was on the last night of 
Jacob's sojourn in the land of promise, that God 
was pleased to repeat, for the last time, the promise 
made at the first to Abram, and in the place which 
Abram had especially consecrated to the God who 
had made that promise. These, we repeat it, are 
not circumstances to be superficially glossed over, 
in a book wherein not one word has been written 
in vain. That the importance nevertheless of this 
passage of Holy Writ should only fully appear now, 
that the sojourn of Israel in Egypt is receiving such 
large elucidation from the monuments that still 
exist in the valley of the Nile, is a special but not 



JOSEPH. 105 

at all a singular circumstance, in the providential 
arrangements of God. He "who hath addressed his 
word to man so long as man shall sojourn upon this 
earth, has also ordained, that with the lapse of 
time, the intelligence of man and the sphere of his 
knowledge shall advance likewise and continually : 
but the effect of this wider intellectual glance will 
only be, that the word of God will vindicate its 
verity more triumphantly, and more clearly demon- 
strate the adaptation of its teachings to the wants 
of man. 

In order to make appear the great importance of 
the passage before us, we must call the attention of 
our readers to another portion of the Bible, which 
discourses of the points now under review. 

" He that ministereth to you the Spirit and 
worketh miracles, doeth he it by the works of the 
law, or by the hearing of faith ? Even as Abraham 
believed God, and it was accounted to him for 
righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which 
are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 
And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify 
the heathen through faith, declared before, the good 
news unto Abraham, that is, ' In thee and in thy 
seed shall all nations be blessed/ So then they 
which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abra- 
ham. For as many as are under the works of the 
law are under a curse : for it is written, Cursed is 



106 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

every one that continueth not in all things that are 
written in the book of the law to do them. But 
that no man is justified by the law in the sight of 
God is evident : for [it is written] the just shall 
live by faith ; and the law is not of faith, but [it 
says] the man that doeth them shall live in them. 
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, 
being made a curse for us : for it is written, Cursed 
is every one that hangeth on a tree : that the bless- 
ing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through 
Jesus Christ ; that we might receive the promise of 
the Spirit through faith. 

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; 
though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be con- 
firmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. 
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises 
made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many ; 
but as of one, And unto thy seed, which is Christ. 
And this I say, that the covenant, which was con- 
firmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 
four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disan- 
nul, that it should make the promise of none effect. 
For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more 
of promise : but God gave it to Abraham by pro- 
mise." Gal. iii. 5—18. 

The scope of this passage, we need scarcely ob- 
serve, is to prove that the Abrahamic promise was 
a matter superior to, and independent of, the Mo- 



JOSEPH. J 07 

saic law ; and the proof of the position is found in 
the circumstance, that the promise was made to 
Abraham and to his seed as to one, not to his seeds 
or posterity generally, as to many ; (so the Jews in- 
terpret it ;) the one man, thus designated, being 
Christ. It follows, therefore, that it was to Christ 
in Abraham, and not to Abraham in person, that 
the promise, in its ultimate interpretation, was 
made. But, according to the Scripture doctrine of 
paternity, Christ was in Isaac, and Christ was in 
Jacob, quite as much as in Abraham. (See Hebrews 
vii. 9, 10.) It is therefore of no importance to which 
of the representatives and heads of the family of 
Abraham the promise is repeated. The same God 
speaks in it of the same Christ, and as long as the 
promise is repeated, so long the dispensation of the 
promise lasts. But in the passage before us, God 
orally declared the Abrahamic promise for the last 
time. It was never afterwards repeated to the 
chosen race by this mode of revelation. It is 
moreover wonderfully remarkable, that this last 
repetition took place on the last night of the sojourn 
of the Patriarchs in Canaan. On the day following 
the tribe of Israel crossed the borders of Egypt. 
We find, therefore, with admiration, but without 
surprise, that in this " covenant, well ordered in 
all things/' the dispensation of the promise, (that 
is, of the divine utterance of the promise) which 



108 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

began with the call of Abram into Canaan, from Ur 
of the Chaldees, terminated on the last night of the 
sojourn in Canaan of Isaac his grandson. 

Upon this view of the subject, another conclusion 
follows inevitably. It is from the end and not 
from the beginning of this dispensation of the 
promise that the interval between it and the law 
must be computed. To assume that in the passage 
we have quoted from the Gralatians, St. Paul speaks 
only of the first enunciation of the promise to Abram 
is to ignore altogether the frequent subsequent re- 
petitions of the same promise to himself and to 
Jacob. Whereas the entire argument of the apostle 
goes to show that Grod and his Christ were the only 
parties to the promise at any time, and conse- 
quently, that all the repetitions of the promise were 
of exactly the same value, inasmuch as they were 
all made by the same God of the same Christ. The 
four hundred and thirty years therefore mentioned 
by St. Paul, as the interval between the Abrahamic 
promise and the Mosaic law, dates from the last re- 
petition of that promise to Jacob at Beer-sheba on 
the last night of his sojourn in the land of Canaan. 
This is very evident. Let us now turn to other 
passages of Holy Writ which mention the same 
interval. 

"Now the sojourning of the children of Israel 
who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty 



JOSEPH. 109 

years. And it came to pass at the end of the four 
hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it 
came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went 
out from the land of Egypt/' Exodus xii. 10, 11. 

It is not possible for language to be more explicit 
than this. The passage is found at the termination 
of the history of the bondage in Egypt ; the dura- 
tion of the sojourn of Israel there is a natural con- 
clusion of the narrative. We are well aware of the 
interpolation which this text has suffered in the 
Samaritan Pentateuch, and some other authorities 
of the third and fourth centuries before the vulgar 
era, and whereby it is made to read " the sojourn- 
ing of the children of Israel who dwelt in Canaan 
and in Egypt, &c." This gloss we apprehend, con- 
victs itself of forgery, by the circumstance that it 
converts the passage into arrant nonsense. The 
natural termination of the history in the sojourn in 
Egypt, is the duration of that sojourn as we have 
already explained : — but thus interpolated, the pas- 
sage does not give the duration of that sojourn at 
all ; but the chronology of another event, altogether 
foreign and irrelevant to the matter in hand. 

When we add to these that no copy of the Hebrew 
original has this reading, and that, as Bunsen has 
well observed, the very nature of the addition excites 
a strong suspicion of its falsehood, there is no occa- 
sion to detain the reader further with the well 



110 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

known motives of the interpolators. Enough has 
been advanced to establish the truth of the Hebrew 
reading. It is only the adoption of the gloss by- 
many otherwise high authorities on Biblical criti- 
cism, which has rendered needful that which we 
have said upon it. 

If the Bible is to decide this question, and not 
man's chronological and statistical speculations, the 
enquiry is at an end. This period of 400 years was 
distinctly prophesied to Abram, almost at the com- 
mencement of his sojourn in Canaan, Gen. xv. 1 3. 
The same period is also formally repeated in the 
inspired adoption of this prophecy by Stephen, Acts 
vii. 6, as well as by St. Paul in the passage already 
quoted from Galatians. 

Thus clearly is it revealed in the word of God, 
that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for 
exactly four hundred and thirty years, and because 
it is thus revealed, and for no other reason, we at 
once assume it, and take our stand upon it boldly 
and decidedly. If it be objected to us, that by doing 
this we shall presently involve ourselves in inextri- 
cable difficulties, we reply, that we shall not for 
that reason tamper with the truth of God. We 
receive this fact as He has revealed it. We shall 
proceed, step by step, through the whole subject ; 
and when the threatened difficulties arise, we will 
endeavour to deal with them. A tangible and pre- 



JOSEPH. Ill 

cise fact like this, moreover, of times so remote from 
history is far too precious to be allowed to pass 
away before the chronological chimera of this critic, 
or the statistical spectre of that philosopher. We 
repeat that which we have already said before, that 
the writings of believers in revelation are the ar- 
moury whence its infidel assailants have drawn their 
deadliest weapons. 

" And Jacob broke up [his encampment] at Beer- 
sheba : and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their 
father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the 
waggons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him/' 
Gen. xlvi. 5. 

The word here translated " waggon/' H^JS meant 
originally, " young bullock/' which being the uni- 
versal beast of burden in the ancient world, after- 
wards gave its name to the vehicle to which it was 
yoked. The subject of draught-oxen is very com- 
mon in the reliefs of Egypt, but the carriages are 
not on wheels, but on runners. 




It was in such carriages, drawn by oxen, that the 
household stuff of the patriarchs was conveyed into 



112 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



Egypt. Jacob, with the women and young children, 
went thither in palanquins, which were either drawn 
by men-slaves, or borne upon their shoulders. 




FROM THE TOMB OP NAHRAI. 



"And they took their cattle and their goods 
which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and 
came into Egypt, Jacob and all his seed with him. 
His sons, and his sons' sons with him ; his daugh- 
ters and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought 
he with him to Egypt 

" All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt 
of his issue, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the 
souls were three-score and six. And the sons of 
Joseph which were born him in Egypt were two 
souls : all the souls of the house of Jacob which 
came into Egypt, were three-score and ten." Gen. 
xlvi. 6, 7, 26, 27. 



JOSEPH. 113 

The great precision after which, the writer of this 
passage labours in the detail of these facts is very 
remarkable. It is impossible for a statement to be 
made more carefully. Xow there are but two mo- 
tives conceivable by which the penman can have 
been actuated in this writing. The one is his con- 
viction, that the facts he had to state were deeply 
important to his history : the other his conscious- 
ness, that he was writing a falsehood which never- 
theless he wished to impose upon his readers for 
truth. If in this or any other numerical statement 
the numbers thus formally recorded may be accepted 
in a vague indefinite sense, so that any one number 
may mean any other, (a mode of interpretation very 
much in vogue among certain critics of the present 
day) assuredly the passage before us was written 
for the purpose of deceiving and misleading the 
reader. This conclusion is inevitable. 

" And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to 
direct his face unto Goshen ; when they came into 
the land of Goshen.* And Joseph made ready his 
chariot, and went to meet Israel his father in Go- 

* The city of On, or Heliopolis, was some miles to the southward oi 
the Delta, of which (as we have already explained) Goshen was one of 
the ancient names. The circumstances here detailed, correspond very 
exactly both in time and place. The tribe of Jacob sought the grassy 
plains of the Delta for the pasturage of their cattle immediately on their 
arrival in Egypt. Judah, the first-born of Jacob, is sent to On, to announce 
to Joseph his father's arrival. 

I 



114 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

shen, and presented himself unto him, and he fell 
on his neck and wept on his neck a good while. 
And Israel said unto Joseph, now let me die, since 
I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive/' 
Gen. xlvi. 28—30. 

It would be with the state and habiliments of a 
military chief that Joseph went forth on this occa- 
sion ; by no other order of the community were 
horse-chariots, rQSlE, ever used. 

" And Joseph said unto his brethren and unto his 
father's house, I will go up and shew Pharaoh, and 
say unto him, My brethren and my father's house, 
which were in the land of Canaan are come unto 
me. And the men are shepherds, they are also 
herdsmen, and their flocks and their herds, and all 
their possessions they have brought. And it shall 
come to pass when Pharaoh shall speak to you, and 
shall say, What is your occupation ? that ye shall 
say, Thy servants have tended cattle from our youth, 
even until now, both we and also our fathers, that 
ye may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shep- 
herd is the abomination of Egypt." Gen. xxxi. 34. 

So universally is the very well-known passage of 
Manetho preserved by Josephus in his first book 
against the sophist Apion, quoted as a comment upon 
tjiis text, that we are absolutely compelled to follow 
a precedent so firmly established, and take here the 
question of the first shepherd-invasion of Egypt. 



JOSEPH. 115 

Having quoted this passage, commentators generally 
consider, that the abhorrence of the shepherd by 
the Egyptian is hereby fully accounted for. To this 
assumption we shall be compelled to demur. 

It is as follows : — " There was a king [of Egypt] 
named Amountimseus. In his reign God was un- 
propitious, I do not know why ; and unexpectedly, 
some men of ignoble race, rushing boldly from the 
East, made war upon the country and took it easily 
without a battle, and having made prisoners of the 
principal men in it, they burnt down the cities and 
overthrew the temples of the gods. They likewise 
used all the inhabitants as harshly as possible, slay- 
ing some, and selling others with their wives and 
children into slavery/' k«t, A*k>*. I. 14. 

This passage, which we have translated as closely 
as possible, convicts itself of intentional exaggera- 
tion by its phraseology. Nevertheless, that it is a 
genuine extract from the temple-records, there can 
be no doubt. We have already explained, that the 
men of ignoble race were the lower Egyptians, that 
they were the partizans of the older religion, and 
that the Canaanite settlers in the Delta took part 
with them in the schism that arose in Egypt upon 
the change made in her mythology by Mencheres. 
The monuments whence Manetho extracted this his- 
tory being kept by the partizans of the opposite 
faction, we hereby fully explain both the application 

I 2 



116 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

of the opprobrious nicknames of " shepherds " and 
" foreigners," to the Lower Egyptian Pharaohs, and 
the fearful picture which the account gives of the 
barbarities committed by the men from the east, who 
conquered Amountimaeus, which the existing monu- 
ments of Egypt contradict in toto. 

u At length they made one of themselves king, 
whose name was Salatis. He lived at Memphis, 
and put to tribute both the Upper and the Lower 
Country, and garrisoned the most important places. 
But he principally fortified the eastern parts, [of his 
dominion] fearing the growing desire of the Assy- 
rians, who were then becoming very powerful, to 
invade his kingdom. So that, finding in the Sethe- 
oite nome a city very advantageously situated upon 
the eastern banks of the Bubastite branch [of the 
Nile] and called from some ancient myth, Avaris, 
he fortified it, making it very strong with walls, and 
garrisoned it with am immense force, amounting to 
240,000 men. Here he held his court in the sum- 
mer season, administering both the provisioning [of 
the garrison] and the collection of tribute, training 
[his troops] diligently in martial exercise through 
fear of a hostile attack from without. Having 
reigned for nineteen years, he died. After him 
another named Beon reigned for twenty-four years, 
and then another named Apachnas for forty-six 
years and seven months ; then Aphophis for sixty- 



JOSEPH. 117 

one years, and Jannas for fifty years and a month. 
After all these, Asses reigned also forty-nine years 
and two months. And these six were the first rulers 
over them, always at war with Egypt., and desiring 
principally to uproot it altogether/'' — Ibid. 

These names of shepherd-kings are all opprobri- 
ous epithets, used as nicknames with punning allu- 
sions to the real names of the Lower Egyptian Pha- 
raohs, to whom they were applied. 

The passage itself is totally irreconcileable with 
the one that precedes it, whence it must have been 
inferred, that the shepherd invasion was a mere 
irruption of armed barbarians ; but it agrees per- 
fectly with the indirect testimony of the remaining 
monuments of this event, and with the scripture 
notices of Egypt under the shepherds, that is, the 
Lower Egyptian Pharaohs. Their kingdom was well 
ordered and peaceable ; and a succession of the 
greatest and best that had ever ruled in Egypt, ex- 
ercised the sovereign authority during reigns of long 
duration. 

The expression, " these six were the first rulers over 
the shepherds/' is well deserving of more attention 
than it has hitherto received ; inasmuch as it dis- 
tinctly alludes to a fact which the monuments have 
irrefragably established, namely, that the so-called 
shepherd-kingdom in Egypt, by no means ended 
with Asses, though he was probably expelled from 



118 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Memphis by the Mencherian Pharaohs. To this 
point, which is of the last importance to the history 
of Israel in Egypt, we must return hereafter. 

" This entire nation [that of the shepherds] was 
called hyksos, — that is king-shepherds, for the 
word hyk signifies c king/ in the sacred tongue, and 
sos means c a shepherd/ and ' shepherds ' in the 
vulgar dialect ; and the two united make hyk-sos." 
Ibid. 

This criticism is perfectly correct in every parti- 
cular. The word hyk occurs in the sacred tongue, 
that is, in the hieroglyphics, with the meaning 
which Josephus assigns to it. ^J^ hk is a group of 
common occurrence in the texts ; it means " king " 
of a foreign nation generally. The word sos (**><;) 
also is of equally common occurrence in the Coptic 
texts, which, being as we have explained, the Egyp- 
tian translation of the Bible and other Christian 
books, represents the vulgar dialect of ancient 
Egypt. It is written shos, and signifies " shep- 
herd/' also " ignominy/' and, " one that is beaten/' 
In the sacred tongue it is not read with this import ; 
but the group which has been thus transcribed is 
of very common occurrence in the texts that ex- 
plain the reliefs, representing wars with Lower 
Egypt — £j_HVi shm or shus, which is evidently 
the same word. The determinative of the group 
shows us, however, that in hieroglyphics this word 



JOSEPH. 119 

was not a common noun, but the proper name of 
some tribe or nation of foreigners, and enemies of 
Egypt. Sos, or Shos, was the name of a powerful 
tribe among the Canaanite auxiliaries of the Lower 
Egyptian Pharaohs, by whom the Mencherians 
were expelled from Memphis. So conspicuous a 
part did they take in this war, that their proper 
name in after ages had passed pargemiastically 
from the sacred to the vulgar dialect as the common 
appellative of " shepherd/' and also of ignominy 
and " opprobrium " generally. The identification 
of the shos we will consider hereafter. 

" Some say that these shepherds were Arabs. 
In another transcription c king ' is not signified by 
the common noun hyk } but, on the contrary, it 
means c captive : ' for the words hyk and hak in 
Egyptian signify literally ' captive/ ' prisoner of 
war.' This last [import] seems to me more cre- 
dible, and in better agreement with ancient his- 
tory." Ibid. 

Josephus here is by no means equally happy. It 
is perfectly true that the words T^m ^ ia ^ 
Hierog., and HK hale, Copt mean "to lead captive/' 
" to take prisoner/' though it is only by a pun that 
they can be brought into relation with the word 
hyksos. But our author was misled by an absurdity 
which, to the great detriment of the truth, he 
mixed up with his defence of the sacred books of 



120 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the Jews. In order to magnify his own nation, he 
endeavours to prove throughout his work, that the 
Israelites were the shepherds who conquered Egypt. 
This at once accounts for his ready acceptance of 
this quibbling criticism, which, as he tells us after- 
wards, greatly favors his view, inasmuch as his fore- 
fathers were both shepherds by occupation and also 
captives in Egypt. 

There is no subject in the entire compass of 
human knowledge which so imperatively demands 
from him that discusses it, a perfectly honest inten- 
tion, or (we grieve to add) that so seldom obtains 
this its demand on any hand, as Biblical criticism. 

" He (Manetho) says, that these before-named 
kings of the shepherds, as they were called, and 
those who were descended from them, ruled Egypt 
for 511 years. But after these things, he says, that 
there was an insurrection against the Shepherds, of 
the kings of the Thebaid and of the rest of Egypt, 
and there broke out against them a great war, and 
of long duration/' Ibid. 

The sum of the reigns of the Shepherd-kings he 
had before catalogued, is 259 years and ten months. 
So that, by the place before us, their kingdom lasted 
251 years after Asses, who was expelled from Mem- 
phis. But the lists of kings which profess to be the 
compend or digest of Manetho's history, put down 
the whole duration of the Shepherd-kingdom in 



JOSEPH. 121 

Egypt at 953 years. We have elsewhere expressed 
our conviction that this kingdom in the Delta had 
been founded long before the conquest of Memphis 
by Salatis or Saites, in the reign of Amun-Timaeus. 
The scriptural and monumental grounds upon which 
this opinion has been formed, we have already de- 
tailed in part, and they will appear further in the 
course of our present undertaking. 

Most unwilling as we are to add needlessly to our 
already sufficiently copious subject, it seems incum- 
bent on us to remark on the present passage from 
Josephus, that a very large and influential school of 
modern investigators have been entirely mistaken 
in their interpretation of it : and that their mistake 
has led to chronological assumptions altogether in- 
compatible with the truth of the Bible. They read 
Josephus as though he had said, that the Shepherd 
kings ruled Egypt for 511 years after the taking of 
Memphis by Salatis, and then the insurrection of 
the Theban kings arose : whereas, in the original, 
Josephus says no such thing. He merely tells us 
that in Manetho's narrative the account of the du- 
ration of the Shepherd-kingdom is followed by that 
of the insurrection which ultimately overthrew it. 
It was not his intention to state at all in this place 
the chronological connection between the two events, 
— for, assuredly, he never could have meant to say 
that the Shepherds ruled in Egypt for 511 years, 



122 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

and then waged a long war which ended in their 
expulsion, — because thereby he would have over- 
thrown entirely the theory he was just about to 
enounce, that the Shepherds were the Israelites : 
inasmuch as his own books, which he knew inti- 
mately, declared authoritatively that the sojourn of 
Israel in Egypt was exactly 430 years. As we pro- 
ceed with our subject, we shall find other occasions 
whereon more conveniently to discuss the time of 
the capture of Memphis. 

It will have sufficiently appeared from what we 
have stated, that the so-called Shepherd invasion of 
Egypt, which was merely a civil war between two 
native pretenders to the crown, was not the reason 
why " every shepherd was an abomination to the 
Egyptians," as is assumed by Biblical critics. This 
antagonism between the husbandman and the herds- 
man had a far earlier origin. It began with Cain 
and Abel : and in Egypt, where the one pursuit 
was agriculture, and where every thing was pre- 
scriptive, it was a doctrine of religion that every 
shepherd by occupation was unclean, and inadmis- 
sible within the precincts of her temples. All this 
we have before explained (p. 19). The Lower 
Egyptian ascendancy then did not make every 
shepherd an abomination to the Egyptians, but the 
Lower Egyptians were afterwards called " Shep- 



JOSEPH. 123 

herds/' that is " abominable/' by the Upper Egyp- 
tians, because of their victories over them. 

" Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, 
my father, and my brethren, and their flocks, and 
their herds, and all that they have, are come out of 
the land of Canaan, and, behold, they are in the 
land of Goshen. And he took some of his brethren, 
even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. 
And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your 
occupation ? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy 
servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers. 
They said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn 
in the land are we come ; for thy servants have no 
pasture for their flocks : for the famine is sore in 
the land of Canaan ; now therefore, we pray thee, 
let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen/' Gen. 
xlvii. 1 — 4. 

This passage puts the cause of the famine out of 
the reach of a doubt. It was not a blight on the 
corn. It was not an excess of rain in the time of 
harvest. It was a drought upon the whole earth. 
At the same time that the pastures of Canaan were 
as arid and as dusty as the waste wilderness that 
surrounds them, the thick forests that clothe the 
mountains of Ethiopia were also drooping for lack 
of moisture, and the Nile " was smitten in its seven 
streams, so that men went over dry shod : " even as 
it shall be again at some future period, and for 



124 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

some similar display of the goodness and severity of 
God towards his people Israel. Is. xi. 15, 16. 

" And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy 
father and thy brethren are come unto thee : the 
land of Egypt is before thee ; in the best of the 
land make thy father and brethren to dwell : in the 
land of Groshen let them dwell : and if thou knowest 
any men of fitness [for the office] among them, set 
them over my cattle/' ver. 5, 6. 

The office proposed by Pharaoh for the accept- 
ance of Joseph's brethren was one frequently held 
by the princes of Egypt. ^^ " Superintendent of 
the king's cattle/' is one of the titles of a prince, 
whose funeral tablet is in the Museo de bei arti, at 
Florence. It has been there ever since the days of 
the Medici, and was doubtless found in Lower 
Egypt. The title is also often written thus : )$f Ji^ 
" royal scribe (or enumerator) of the bodies of 
cattle," or as we should say, " heads of cattle." This 
was an office evidently sought after and highly 
esteemed in Ancient Egypt, a circumstance strongly 
confirmatory of our explanation of the sense in 
which " every shepherd (or cattle-feeder — n ?^ means 
both) was an abomination to the Egyptians." They 
were religiously unclean, and not allowed to dwell 
in the cities of Egypt, which were all accounted the 
precincts of the temples of their tutelary gods, that 
invariably stood in the midst of them. This re- 



JOSEPH. 125 

strietion seems to have gone no further than those 
who immediately attended upon the cattle. 

" And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and 
set him before Pharaoh : and Jacob blessed Pha- 
raoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art 
thou ? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of 
the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and 
thirty years ; few and evil have the days of the 
years of my life been, and have not attained unto 
the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the 
days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pha- 
raoh, and went out from before Pharaoh/' Gen. 
xlvii. 7—10. 

In this passage is contained the only formal state- 
ment of the fact, that the life of man had under- 
gone a considerable abbreviation in the course of 
the period that had then elapsed since the creation 
and the deluge. The recorded length of the lives 
of the men of these still earlier times had already 
made apparent this same fact. It is moreover 
to be noted, that in the times of Jacob human life 
had a much longer average duration than after- 
wards. This is a fact which will presently demand 
our attention. It was not until later, that the da.ys 
of the years of man's life had dwindled down u to 
three-score years and ten/' Ps. xc. 10. These are 
truths revealed so clearly and obviously, that it is 
hard to conceive how a distinct denial of them, or 



126 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

even such an explanation of them, as shall make 
the names of the earlier patriarchs not those of in- 
dividuals, but of tribes, and the Scripture numbers 
generally the metaphorical representations of vague, 
undefined, and undefineable lapses of time, can 
nevertheless consist with expressions of boundless 
respect for the Old Testament. Such is the case 
nevertheless, and with more than one writer of high 
authority on our subject. 

" And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, 
and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, 
in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as 
Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished 
his father and his brethren, and all his father's 
household with bread, according to their families/' 
ver. 12, 13. 

This is the narrative of the inspired historian. 
He applies to the part of Goshen in which Joseph 
located his father and his tribe, the name which it 
obtained long afterwards in the days of the capti- 
vity (see Exod. i. 11). It is almost needless to re- 
mark, that Rameses must have been either another 
name for Goshen, or a part of Goshen. This appears 
very evidently from the text and context. Its lo- 
cality we shall find hereafter. 

Thus have we subjected the whole of the inspired 
narrative of the circumstances which led to the lo- 
cation in Egypt of the tribe or sept of Jacob, in 



JOSEPH. 127 

every single particular, to the most trying ordeal, 
by which it is possible to test the genuineness of 
any professed history of the past, We have mi- 
nutely compared its incidental allusions, those un- 
important accessories, in which all feigned narratives 
invariably betray themselves by blunders and ana- 
chronisms, with the yet existing monuments of the 
time and country of which it purports to relate the 
history. How the Mosaic narrative comes forth from 
the torture-chamber, wherein this crucial question 
has been administered to it, — whether its genuine- 
ness or imposture have appeared in the process, we, 
without one impulse of fear, without one shadow of 
mistrust, leave to the judgment of the reader the 
most hostile to its authenticity, that may cast his 
eye upon our pages. 

These contemporary monuments have corrected 
the mistakes and misapprehensions of twenty-five 
hundred years. They have restored to significance 
and perfect harmony with the context, words which, 
in the days of Ptolemy Epiphanes and the Septua- 
gint, were mere cabalisms. Their import had 
been long forgotten, and they were only to be re- 
presented in the new version by the transcription of 
their Hebrew characters into Greek. 

We have repeatedly remarked, in the course of 
our investigation, that not one word in the Bible 
was written in vain : we have now another and 



128 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

similar proposition to lay down. Not one event in 
Providence has happened in vain. It has not been 
in vain that the monuments of Ancient Egypt have 
remained until now deeply hidden beneath the sand 
of the desert. Neither has their present disclosure 
taken place for no higher purpose than to supply 
materials for huge unreadable volumes, in which 
the writers may display their learning, their philo- 
sophic rejection of the Bible, and their implicit faith 
in Eratosthenes, Censorinus, and other ancient 
Greek authorities. That it is for the illustration of 
the Bible that these materials for the history of 
Ancient Egypt have been kept by a miracle in Pro- 
vidence, we have long felt convinced. Our purpose 
in the present work is to demonstrate the truth of 
this our conviction. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FAMINE. 



"And there was no bread in all the land ; for the 
famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and 
the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. 
And Joseph gathered up all the money that was 
found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of 
Canaan, for the corn which they bought : and Joseph 
brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And 
when the money failed in the land of Egypt and 
in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came 
unto Joseph and said, Give us bread, for why should 
we die before thee, for the money faileth ? And 
Joseph said, Give me your cattle ; and I will give 
you for your cattle, if money fail. And they brought 
their cattle unto Joseph : and Joseph gave them 
bread for horses, for flocks, for herds, and for asses : 
and he brought them through that year with [the] 
bread [he gave them]/' Gen. xlvii 13 — 1 7. 

This was but the third year of the famine. At 



130 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

its conclusion, the whole of the moveable property 
of Egypt and Canaan is Pharaoh's. The rings of 
silver and gold are in his treasure-houses. The 
cattle of all kinds feed on the grassy plains of the 
Delta, under the supervision of the king's servants. 
The enumeration of the several kinds of cattle 
mentioned here, is illustrated by the tombs of the 
princes of Egypt of the times of Joseph. Cattle 
of several sorts formed an important part of their 
wealth. They are represented on the walls of their 
tombs with minute accuracy : so much so, that each 
separate head has the appearance of a portrait. It 
would convey a wrong impression were we to assume 
that the flocks and herds of Egypt were like those 
that now graze the pastures of England. They con- 
sisted of collections of many different species of 
bovine and caprine animals. The princes were in 
the habit of going forth to the mountains on hunt- 
ing expeditions, at the head of long trains of attend- 
ants, for the purpose of taking them alive in toils. 
It is not until the times immediately preceding those 
of Joseph that they are ever represented hunting 
with deadly weapons. The experiment which ulti- 
mately issued in the present breeds of tame cattle 
was then in progress. Gazelles, antelopes, and wild 
goats of various species constituted the flocks of the 
princes of Egypt. Zebus, yaks, brahmin -bulls, as 
well as the wild cattle, both of Western Asia and 



THE FAMINE. 131 

Eastern Africa, were their herds. Even in the days 
of Joseph's immediate predecessors, a highly-valued 
possession of one of the princes of the twelfth dy- 
nasty, Nahrai,* consisted in a tame breed of the 
oryx, the gnou, or some other species of the colossal 
antelopes that to this day bound in herds over the 
vast plains of interior Africa. 

The concentration of the cattle of vast districts 
in one place, and under one hand and manage- 
ment, which is implied by the inspired narrative, 
would have the effect of greatly settling the tame 
breeds which were afterwards in use. This effect 
certainly followed : for of the cattle depicted in 
the tombs of Egypt, which belong to later times 
than those of Joseph, the flocks are all goats, and 
the herds are all oxen, of three or four breeds 
only. 

The ass was always the beast of burden of Egypt, 
from the very earliest period of which we have any 
monumental^record. He still strays wild in herds, 
and browses the oases of the desert tracts that hem 
in Egypt on all sides. The Zebra, the Twaggai, and 
the other striped asses of interior Africa do not 
appear ever to have reached Egypt. Had they been 
seen there, doubtless they would have been highly 
valued. 

The horse was unknown in Egypt in the times 

* His tomb is at Beni-hassan, in Middle Egypt. 
K 2 



132 ISRAEL IK EGYPT. 

that preceded the Lower Egyptian or shepherd 
kingdom. He constantly appears, and as a property 
in the highest possible estimation, on the monu- 
ments of the times that followed that kingdom. It 
is well worthy of note that, in exact accordance 
with this monumental indication, the horse is not 
mentioned among the possessions acquired by Abram 
during his sojourn in Egypt. Gen. xii. 15. Whereas, 
in the passage before us, the horse stands first of all 
among the cattle of the princes of Egypt. The 
political changes which have taken place in the in- 
terval between the times of Abram, and those of 
Joseph, satisfactorily account for this discrepancy 
which prevails alike in the texts and on the monu- 
ments. Doubtless with the great influx of eastern 
strangers into Lower Egypt which they promoted, 
the horse was introduced from his native wilds of 
Arabia. 

The camel, which was one of Abram's possessions 
in Egypt, formed no part of the live stock of 
Egypt in Joseph's time. It is not represented in 
the pictures, nor mentioned in the inscriptions of 
one monument of Egypt of any epoch whatever. 
It was doubtless an unclean animal there, and not 
permitted under any circumstances to enter the pre- 
cincts of the kingdom. We have already explained, 
that in Abram's times the tenure of the Delta was 
very uncertain and precarious, and that it seems to 



THE FAMINE. 133 

have been well nigli common ground to the Egyp- 
tians and Canaanites : whereas, under the Lower 
Egyptian kingdom it became a part of Egypt, where 
the laws and usages of the realm were rigidly 
enforced. So fully does this comparison of the 
inspired text with the existing monuments, bring 
out its truth to the minutest particular. 

The domestic animals of ancient Egypt, as depicted 
on the monuments, and traceable in their existing 
remains, would form a deeply interesting subject of 
investigation. 

" When that year was ended, they came to him 
the second year and said unto him, We will not hide 
from our lord how that our money is spent ; my lord 
also hath our herds of cattle ; there is not ought 
left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our 
lands : Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, 
both we and our lands ? buy us and our land for 
bread, and we and our land will be servants unto 
Pharaoh : and give us seed, that we may live and 
not die, that the land be not desolate. 

u And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for 
Pharaoh ; for the Egyptians sold every man his 
field, because the famine prevailed over them : so 
the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, 
he removed them to cities from one end of the bor- 
ders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof/' Gen. 
xlvii. 18—21. 



134 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

A great and momentous change in the social con- 
dition of the entire population of Lower Egypt is 
assuredly implied by the passage before us to have 
originated in these governmental acts of Joseph, 
and to have been still prevalent in the times of the 
writer of the present narrative. The change thus 
effected is the one which, in every case, clearly marks 
the transition of a people from the state of semi- 
barbarism to that of civilization. It consists in 
the reclamation of the mass of the inhabitants of 
a country from a wandering life passed in tents to a 
fixed life passed in cities and villages. It was in all 
other ancient countries a process so slow and gradual 
as altogether to escape historical notice, save in some 
myth or religious fable wherein the priesthood 
conferred the honour of originating it upon some 
noted benefactor of their temples and worship. 
In the land into the ancient history of which we 
are now enquiring, where nothing perishes, the 
period, the occasion, and the man by whom it was 
accomplished, are all preserved. 

It was in the fourth year of the famine that the 
Divine wisdom in Joseph laid the foundation of laws 
and institutions in Egypt, upon which she flourished 
as an independent state for nearly 2000 years after- 
wards. A duration which surpasses more than three- 
fold that of any other ancient monarchy. 

The monumental indications of the occurrence of 



THE FAMINE. 135 

such a political change about the time when the 
Bible informs us it took place, are neither few nor 
unimportant. The Greek lists hint obscurely, but 
intelligibly, at the great disorders and irregularities 
of government that afflicted Egypt at the commence- 
ment of the monarchy. Changes of dynasty, anar- 
chies, and civil wars, are noted as common occur- 
rences. The monuments speak of a state of things 
in the infancy of the monarchy, which was sure to 
produce these effects. The princes of Egypt had 
possessions so vast, and laid claim to powers so un- 
limited, that it is really not easy to comprehend 
what power was left for Pharaoh to exercise. In 
these times he must have been in the position of 
our kings in the Middle Ages, the mere slave and 
vassal of the haughty nobles that surrounded him. 
The effect, as well as the cause, is clearly chronicled 
in this wonderful stone-history. The early kings 
of Egypt seem to have been as uncertain in their 
dwelling-place as their subjects. The immediate 
successors of the founder of Memphis, the first me- 
tropolis of Egypt, administered the affairs of the 
kingdom there for a few generations only. Then 
comes an interval of 200 years, in which no royal 
name, save of an obscure king or two, occurs in her 
cemeteries. The successors of these primitive kings 
have left their memorials higher up the valley ; and 
the Greek lists, in strict harmony with this monu- 



136 ISRAEL IN EGYPT, 

mental indication, tells us that the successors of the 
builders of the pyramids had for their capital, Aby- 
dos, far in Middle Egypt, on its extreme southern 
limit, and 200 miles from Memphis.* Then follows 
a religious civil war, and an anarchy which is filled 
up in the lists as usual, with hundreds of anony- 
mous kings reigning for one or two millennia, and 
with about half a dozen names of obscure kings on 
the monuments. It was thus that the priests of 
Egypt ever wrote history ! Then, once more, a new 
family reigning still at Abydos, or Coptos, exercised 
dominion over the whole of Egypt, and the monu- 
ments and the lists are again in accordance : but in 
little more than a century, Amun Timseus, the last of 
this dynasty, is dispossessed of Memphis by the Lower 
Egyptian king, Saitis, and Egypt is divided into at 
least two distinct monarchies. Of what is all this the 
indication, but of that which has hitherto taken place 
in the infancy of all the monarchies of the world ? 
An insufficient modicum of authority unwillingly 
conceded to the reigning monarch by a factious oli- 
garchy of haughty nobles. It is scarcely needful 
for us to explain how exactly the measures with 
which the Divine Wisdom inspired Joseph on the 
occasion of the famine, struck at the root of this 
evil, and laid the foundation of the absolute, yet 

* This city is called in the lists, Elephantine. I have elsewhere dealt 
with this mistake, History of Egypt, vol. i. 



THE FAMINE. 137 

well-ordered monarchy w!iich, in the infancy of 
states, and in ages of semi-barbarism, is the only 
possible form of government under which prosperity 
and justice to the ruled are reciprocated by tran- 
quillity and permanence to the rulers. 

The monuments of Egypt of the ages that followed 
the times of Joseph, present a very remarkable con- 
trast in this particular, to those that precede him. 
In these earlier periods, the only remaining memorial 
of Pharaoh is the pyramid in which he was buried. 
The great works were all executed by the princes 
and potentates that surrounded him. He is only 
named, while living, on the occasion of conferring 
some tract of land on one of his nobles. After his 
death they made an idol of him, worshipped him in 
his pyramid, and constituted themselves his priests 
and ministering attendants : offices which of course 
were well endowed both with revenues and political 
power. This is the occasion on which the names of 
the kings of primitive Egypt appear far more fre- 
quently than on any other. 

Nothing can be more striking than the contrast 
to this state of things which is presented by the 
monuments of the times that succeeded the epoch 
of Joseph. Now Pharaoh is every thing : whereas 
before, he had been a mere pageant, next to nothing. 
The princes of Egypt, who had been supreme in the 
earlier period, become, in their turn, insignificant 



138 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

and powerless, save through Pharaoh, in these later 
times. The titles of Abrach, Saris, Rapha-he, and 
other distinctions, which were all but universal in 
the court of the early Pharaohs, fell into utter de- 
suetude in the times of their successors. The nobles 
of Egypt, in the post-pastoral period of her history, 
were contented with the offices of generals, admi- 
rals, superintendents of estates, judges, and other 
functions, all entirely subordinate to the royal 
power of Pharaoh ; and date the great transactions 
of their lives by the year of Pharaoh's reign — a 
practice of which there is not a single example in 
the preceding times. The name of the reigning king 
is, in short, recorded every where, and nothing is 
done in Egypt, either in peace or war, but Pharaoh 
is at the head of the movement. Even in the tombs 
of the princes this contrast to the earlier epoch pre- 
vails as every where else. The princes of the pyra- 
mids were petty kings nearly independent of Pha- 
raoh. The nobles of Thebes were as much the 
dependents on the will of Pharaoh as the slaves 
that ground his corn. The contrast in this parti- 
cular of the two epochs, is as perfect as possible ; 
and the institutions of Joseph, embodied in the 
passage of the inspired narrative before us, most 
satisfactorily account for it. 

The institutions of Joseph extended over all 
Egypt. His patron was a most magnificent mon- 



THE FAMINE. 139 

arch. The memorials of his reign have been care- 
fully defaced every where by the fanatic bigotry of 
his successors. His memory has likewise been re- 
viled by them as a shepherd and a foreigner. But 
the few remains that have escaped them, betray 
their falsehood and their barbarism. 

At Shech Said, Sowet-al Misdan, El Bircheh, 
and some other localities in the south of Middle 
Egypt, there are many tombs of the nobles who 
wrote his name (g^l)| He was evidently a rich 
and munificent king. The arts of design attained 
in his age a perfection certainly not surpassed, pro- 
bably not equalled in any other epoch. Like the 
most eminent of his predecessors, he built a palace 
which must have been of magnificent dimensions, 
and richly endowed ; for the princes of his court 
were all ambitious to fill offices connected with its 
construction or economy. flljgj | This monarch 



was the Phiops or Aphophis of the lists, and the 
patron of Joseph ; for there was but one Pharaoh of 
the name. 

The institutions of Joseph, then, were coextensive 
with the kingdom of Aphophis ; that is, with Egypt 
Proper; and the changes he here introduced affected 
the entire monarchy, and were not confined to the 
Delta. It was on this account that they became 
permanent, and have left their traces upon the yet 
existing monuments of the country, which, at every 



140 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

step of our enquiry, seems more strongly to vindi- 
cate its claim to be entitled the land of wonders. 
All these questions we shall presently consider. 

" Only the land of the priests bought he (Joseph) 
not : for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh, 
and ate the portion that Pharaoh gave them : 
wherefore Joseph bought not their lands/' Gen. 
xlvii. 22. 

If our identification of Pharaoh Aphophis on the 
monuments be correct, this is exactly the measure 
we should have anticipated from a monarch of his 
piety and munificence. He himself undertook the 
victualling of the temples during the famine, from 
the drafts which, as Pharaoh, he drew upon the 
magazines of Joseph. So that the land of the priests 
Joseph did not purchase, for it was never brought 
to market. The nobles and the priests of Egypt 
therefore were placed by the events of the famine 
in two entirely distinct categories. In the preceding 
times they had stood in the same position as land- 
owners. This is the clear import of the sacred 
text, not one word of which, we repeat, has been 
written in vain. 

" Then Joseph said unto the people : Behold, I 
have bought you this day and your land for Pha- 
raoh. There shall be seed for you [when the famine 
is past] and ye shall sow the land. And it shall be 
[the law] that ye shall give a fifth part of the yield 



THE FAMINE. 141 

to Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for 
seed of the field and for your food, and for them of 
your households, and for food for your little ones. 
And they said, Thou hast saved our lives : let us 
find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be 
the servants [slaves] of Pharaoh. And Joseph made 
it law over the land of Egypt unto this day, the fifth 
to Pharaoh, save the land of the priests alone, for 
that was not Pharaoh's/' Gen. xlvii. 23 — 26. 

The wisdom with which Joseph was endowed 
from God is very conspicuous throughout the whole 
record of his administration, and perhaps appears 
no where more clearly than in this the last trans- 
action thereof, which has been preserved in the 
inspired narrative. He does not dispossess the 
princes of Egypt of their land unconditionally, not- 
withstanding their avowed willingness so to sur- 
render it. This would have left the entire population 
of the country in the grasp of an autocrat ; which 
would have infallibly ended in one of those iron 
tyrannies that afflict a nation for a few years, and 
then are swept away by the mercy of God. But 
with infinite sagacity he took advantage of the 
occasion accurately to adjust the question between 
the sovereign and his nobles, so that the authority 
of the one, and the privileges of the other, were both 
clearly defined. The expenses of the government of 
Egypt were defrayed by the impost ; and then the 



142 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

proprietorship of the land reverted to the original 
possessors. The power of Pharaoh was hereby in- 
creased, so as to enable him to maintain the rights 
of the crown against the daring ambition of his 
nobles, but not so as to constitute him an irrespon- 
sible autocrat or tyrant. The nobles also were no 
longer in position to assume the titles and preroga- 
tives of kings,* as they constantly do on the walls 
of their banquet-halls, in the times that preceded 
Joseph, and to trouble Egypt with incessant civil 
wars of pretension ; but neither were they deprived 
of their just rights and properties by this most sa- 
gacious adjustment. Joseph accepted of their full 
acknowledgment of the supremacy of Pharaoh, and 
the fifth part of the future produce of their lands, in 
Compensation for their nourishment for that year, 
and the three following years during which the 
famine was to last. Afterwards he gave them seed 
from his garners, wherewith to sow their fields, 
which were once more overflowed by the fertilizing 
waters of the Nile. Even to this particular he had 
already bound himself and the government of Pha- 
raoh, by express stipulation in the original contract ; 
thereby guarding, as far as possible, against any 
advantage being taken of the forlorn condition of 
the princes of Egypt, for further exactions on the 
part of Pharaoh, in case of his own demise. 

* Though they never pretended to the crown ; which, by the funda- 
mental law of the kingdom, was hereditary in the family of Menes. 




THE FAMINE. 143 



The principle of this most equitable adjustment, 
seems to have remained the law of Egypt up to the 
extinction of the monarchy. The terms of it were 
far too honest and moderate not to be intrenched 
upon by the dominant party in after-ages. In the 
days of Diodorus Siculus, who visited Egypt about 
the time of the birth of our Saviour, the king's 
share in the produce had grown to one-third, and 
been commuted by the cession to the crown of that 
proportion of the land itself* 

The relative position of the priesthood in Egypt 
likewise underwent a considerable modification by 
those institutions of Joseph, the monumental evi- 
dence of which it will now be incumbent upon us 
to examine. These, as we trust to show, are neither 
few nor dubious. In primitive Egypt, as its his- 
tory stands written on its coeval monuments, the 
father of the family who was even then a prince, 
was also the priest. All the higher offices connected 
with religion mingle with military and naval com- 
mands in the long lists of titles and dignities of 
these petty kings. The individuals actually minis- 
trant in the various offices of the worship of the 
gods and kings, scarcely appear in their tombs, and 
when they are represented there, it is merely as 
members of the prince's household. They were, in 
fact, the servants or slaves of nobles, as much so as 

* Historiarum, lib. i. c. 73. 



144 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the keepers of their cattle, or their agricultural la- 
bourers.* It would seem from the inspired narra- 
tive, that a similar state of things with the Egyptian 
priesthood prevailed in Joseph's days. The em- 
balmers, who are said to be his servants, Gen. 1. 2, 
were an order of the priesthood, as we shall find 
hereafter. 

The monumental history of the times that fol- 
lowed those of Joseph, present to us the Egyptian 
priesthood under an aspect as remarkably contrasted 
with their former condition, as we have found to 
have been that of the princes of the same two 
epochs. The priest and his function have risen 
wonderfully in position and importance among the 
institutions of Egypt. The only remains of prae- 
pastoral Egypt, are tombs, palaces, and pyramids. 
These last, with their precincts, were the only tem- 
ples ; for all their gods were dead men, so that it 
was fitting that all their temples should be sepul- 
chres. The temples of Athom (that is, Adam, the 
first man, identified with the sun) at Heliopolis, and 
of Pthah (that is, Phut, the son of Ham, at Memphis) 
were enclosures surrounding pyramids. In that at 
Heliopolis, was most probably deposited some so- 

* The monumental evidence of this state of things under the Old 
Kingdom is very ample. The copious details both in reliefs and hierogly- 
phics, of which it is composed, pertain rather to an entire monumental 
History of Egypt, than to the present work. 



THE FAMINE. 145 

called relic of the father of mankind. It is not cer- 
tain that a single temple, properly so called, existed 
in the old kingdom. 

In wonderful contrast to this, the remains of the 
new kingdom are all templar. In addition to the 
ruins of temples, which are by far the most frequent 
of all memorials of post-pastoral Egypt, the palaces 
of the Pharaohs, and the houses of the nobles, were 
covered within and without with reliefs represent- 
ing shrines of gods, trains of priests, and pomps of 
worship. In the sepulchral vaults of the nobles 
themselves, the adamantine chain of prescription is 
gradually loosened, and the exemplar of the tombs 
of their forefathers of Old Egypt, where every thing 
was secular life, its arts and acts, and where, save 
in proper names and titles, thS gods were never 
mentioned, is somewhat departed from at the very 
commencement of the war with the Lower Egyp- 
tians or Shepherds. Even at this period, (about the 
time of the death of Joseph,) the ceremonies of the 
great man's funeral intermix with the labours of his 
slaves ; and the enumeration of his flocks and herds, 
in the decorations of the tombs of the princes of 
Egypt. The examples of this first step in the trans- 
ition occur at Elethya in Upper Egypt, and in the 
oldest of the sepulchral vaults at Grournou in 
Western Thebes. As we proceed downwards with 
the stream of history, the secular progressively re- 

L 



146 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

cedes, to give place to the ecclesiastical, in the 
tombs and sepulchral monuments of the nobles of 
Egypt, until, at the last periods of the monarchy, 
the former entirely disappears, and nothing but re- 
ligious processions and mystic devices surround the 
embalmed corpse in the coffin. 

The tombs of the later Pharaohs seem to have 
set the example or fashion of this change. Their 
decorations were from the commencement of this 
epoch, mythic and ecclesiastical only. On the tem- 
ples built by these Pharaohs, the more ancient ones 
mingled the pictures of their wars with the Shep- 
herds and the negroes, with the processions of wor- 
ship and the pictures of gods ; but from the works 
of their successors they entirely disappear, and 
through a long succession of inglorious reigns, the 
priesthood advanced continually in wealth and in- 
fluence, until at length it mounted the throne of 
Pharaoh ; and the summit of the power of the 
Egyptian mythology, and the lowest abyss of po- 
litical and national degradation into which Egypt 
ever fell, during the long period that she existed as 
a kingdom under native Pharaohs, is marked by 
a dynasty of priests.* 

* It is supposed by Bunsen to be the 21st dynasty. They have left 
but few remains of their sovereignty, and these of vile execution, testify- 
ing to great decay in the arts of design. They reigned in Egypt about 
the times of Samuel the Prophet. 



THE FAMINE. 147 

The Greek tradition is consentaneous to these 
monumental indications of the great increase of the 
power of the priesthood during the later periods of 
the Egyptian monarchy. The passage we have just 
quoted from Diodorus Siculus informs us, that in 
the days of his visit to Egypt one-third of the entire 
surface belonged to them. 

Thus have we ascertained that in that interval 
of the history of ancient Egypt during which Jo- 
seph administered the affairs of the kingdom, her 
institutions had undergone a great and momentous 
change, affecting very seriously the relative positions 
of Pharaoh, his nobles, and the priesthood. So 
marked and unmistakeable is this social revolution, 
that it clearly appears upon the comparison of the 
coeval monuments of the two epochs. 

The ordinances of Joseph, which form our present 
text, professedly dealt with all these three con- 
ditions of men in ancient Egypt ; and the changes 
in society which those ordinances would inevitably 
have produced in after-times, are precisely those 
which the coeval monuments of these after-times so 
loudly and plainly declare to have taken place. 

We have not the slightest hope that either this 
or any other similar consideration will for one mo- 
ment relax the serene smile of dignified incredulity 
with which modern philosophy eyes askance the 
pages of the books of Moses, or that she will con- 

L 2 



148 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

descend any other reply than the reiteration of her 
wonted oracular response, " Joseph, his name, his 
history, and his ordinances are all metaphor/' To 
those, however, who still believe the Bible to be the 
word of God, it may be some consolation to find 
that God's truth has not quite so much to fear from 
man's researches as some well-meaning but ill-in- 
formed preachers and writers have endeavoured to 
persuade them. 

" And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt and in 
the country of Goshen, and they had possessions 
therein, and grew and multiplied exceedingly." 
Gen. xlvii. 27. 

This clause again opens the question of the dura- 
tion of the sojourn of Israel in Egypt. We submit 
that the entire passage, and especially the phrase in 
it, " and they had possessions therein," that is, they 
possessed lands, is altogether incompatible with so 
inconsiderable a lapse of time as the 215 years of 
the vulgar computation. 

The deeply interesting circumstances that at- 
tended the death of Jacob we pass over, only be- 
cause they do not admit of illustration from the 
monuments or history of Ancient Egypt. 

" And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept 
upon him, and kissed him. And Joseph commanded 
his servants, the D^NST! raphaim, to embalm his 
father : and the raphaim embalmed Israel." Gen. 
1. 1, 2. 



THE FAMINE. 149 

The office or function which the inspired histo- 
rian has transcribed from the Egyptian in the sacred 
text, is very frequently noted among the titles of 
honour borne by the princes of Egypt of the times 
of Joseph. The group which represents it ^gj" re- 
produced letter for letter the Hebrew transcription 
SD"), which is rightly translated " physician " in the 
English Bible. The root, which was common to 
both Egyptian and Hebrew, meant " to heal/' and 
from thence arose the subsidiary senses " to amend/' 
" to mend/' " to sew ; " but its primary import was 
ei to heal/' The healing art in Egypt, as in all 
other nations in the earlier stages of civilization, 
was in the highest possible repute. So much so 
that the title *a£ *^ " chief physician" was the 
summit of the ambition of the haughty nobles of 
the old kingdom : and the fortunate possessor of it 
invariably places it at the head of his blazon. It 
even precedes the title " royal prince," saris. The 
circumstance that the direct practitioners of the 
healing art formed part of the household of Joseph, 
points out clearly that this honour also had not 
been withheld from him by his bountiful and grate- 
ful benefactor. 

According to the tenets of the Egyptian mytho- 
logy, the embalmment of the dead was the highest 
and noblest exercise of the healing art. It was the 
triumph over the grand disease to which all other 



150 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ailments tended, and in which they terminated. 
The embalmer's duties once completed, the man 
was dead no longer. His body, perfectly pure, 
shining, and beautiful without, and innate with 
divinity, reposed in its gorgeous temple, the conse- 
crated image of a god, worshipped and imparting 
blessings. His soul, alternately performing acts of 
worship to the gods, of prowess against their ene- 
mies, and reposing in the Elysian fields on the 
banks of the celestial Nile (the course of the sun in 
heaven), awaited nevertheless with impatience the 
revolution of the cycle of years after which it would 
return, bearing life and breath, to its former tene- 
ment. Then the resuscitated man would step forth 
from his tomb, once more to dwell in his beloved 
Egypt. Heavily as it is encumbered with coarse 
symbols and mythic absurdities, the fable betrays 
nevertheless the deep conviction which possessed 
the minds of its inventors, that man was not made 
to die, neither the image of God impressed upon his 
external form to see corruption ! 

"We have already stated that the healing art was 
always sacred in Egypt. It passed altogether into 
the hands of the priesthood, in the changes in so- 
ciety which originated with the ordinances of Joseph. 
In the Later Kingdom the title of " chief physician" 
is scarcely assumed by any secular prince, before 
the times of Psammetichus, when the monarchy was 



THE FAMINE. 151 

on the verge of extinction, B.C. 600. A dilettante 
taste for archaeology seems then to have brought 
these old titles once more into vogue. 

The physicians of the New . Kingdom, however, 
like the scribes, did not disdain to associate secular 
offices with their sacred functions ; but the art itself 
was in these later times completely identified with 
religion. So much so, that the translators of the 
Egyptian Bible rejected the word rapha altogether. 
It however remains in the Coptic texts, as the ap- 
pellative of a heathen temple, which being the re- 
sidence of the physicians, would naturally enough 
be named in common discourse, " the doctor's house/' 
erpee [epiihe]. The same word is retained in Egypt 
to this day. The ruins of a temple are still named 
in the vernacular Arabic birbe. 

The well-known passages of Herodotus ii. 85 — 89, 
and Diodorus Siculus i. 91, which describe the modes 
of embalming practised by the Egyptians, have been 
so often quoted at length, in illustration of this 
text, and therefore so familiar to most readers, and 
so easily accessible to all, that we are spared the 
necessity of more than a casual reference to them, 
in the brief sketch of the art ; as it appears, from the 
mummies themselves, to have been actually in prac- 
tice, with which we propose to comment upon it. 

Unless we assume that the remains discovered in 
the chamber of the third pyramid, by Colonel How- 



152 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ard Vyse, are those of the mummy of King Men- 
cheres (which we are free to confess is very doubtful), 
no human bodies have been found in Egypt, of 
which we have evidence that they are so old as the 
times of Joseph. The tomb of Menthotp, the cour- 
tier of a Pharaoh of the 11th dynasty, which was 
opened twenty years ago by Passalaqua at Gournou, 
is the oldest that ever was discovered intact. There 
the body, its swathing, and the case had all moul- 
dered to black dust, so that not even the bones were 
distinguishable. We believe the earliest known 
mummy to be that of the priest Sa-amun, which was 
found by the same excavator in the same burial-place. 
He lived in the reign of Ramses IX., about 1000 b.o. 
His mummy has been opened, and its accessories 
minutely and carefully examined. The comparison 
of the results of this examination, with the accounts 
of the Greek authors to which we have referred, 
utterly dispels the assumption of the French savans 
that nothing changed in Egypt, from the foundation 
of the monarchy to its extinction. In Egypt, as 
everywhere else, the art of embalming, like every 
thing human, was greatly modified by the varying 
circumstances of the long succession of ages during 
which it continued to be practised; so that a mummy 
of the ordinary age of those now existing, that is, 
of the Greek and Roman periods, or thereabouts, 
gives no illustration to the embalming of the body 



THE FAMINE. 153 

of Jacob, beyond the fact that the practice prevailed 
in Egypt at both epochs. 

According to our Greek authorities, the first pro- 
cess in the embalming, after the body had been 
disembowelled, was to steep it for thirty days in a 
solution of the salt called natron. This was the 
practice in the times of both Diodorus and Hero- 
dotus, 450 B.C. It had also prevailed at an earlier 
period : for the flesh of the mummy of Sa-amun, 
1000 B.C., is saturated with this salt. But to judge 
by the effects, some change in the mode of applica- 
tion had taken place, even in that interval. The 
flesh of Sa-amun is entirely adipocire, which 
suggests the inference, that at the earlier epoch the 
mummy was not steeped as in the days of Herodotus, 
but the natronized fluid was incessantly poured over 
it by attendants. The flesh of the priestess Asrui, 
" the porteress/' at Manchester, is in the same state. 
She lived in the days of Sesonchis, about a century 
later than Sa-amun. Here then is a change in a 
custom of embalming, which prepares us for the 
inference to which we have been driven by the facts 
which have been presented to us. So powerful an 
antiseptic is this solution of natron, so perfectly 
imperishable does it make the body, that had it been 
earlier known, the whole of the mummies of all 
epochs alike would have come down to this time. 
This conviction first occurred to us as we were stand- 



154 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ing ankle deep in the black dust, to which all the 
mummies of the old kingdom have mouldered away, 
in one of the pits of Ghizeh. Gems, rings, amulets, 
all of the remotest periods are constantly found 
among the dust. The articles of wood, the baskets 
of bread and fruits in these tombs are scarcely 
altered, but the bodies, their swathings, and their 
coffins, are all dust, The conclusion seems in- 
evitable. The art of embalming was then in its in- 
fancy ; so that the bodies have decayed, and com- 
municated their rottenness to the wood and linen 
that were in contact with them. This process we 
conceive, would in the climate of Egypt have been 
impossible, had the practice of applying to the body 
the natron so universal in the deserts around Egypt 
then existed. 

The next process in the embalmer's art consists, 
according to our Greek authorities, in anointing 
the body with palm wine and oil of cedar, and fill- 
ing up all its cavities with a mixture of fragrant 
gums, resins and woods. Myrrh, and cassia, or cin- 
namon, are specified, with other spices not named, 
as entering into the compound which was used for 
this purpose. 

These practises likewise prevailed in Egypt more 
that 500 years before the times of Herodotus, the 
earliest of our written authorities. The linen cloths 
next to the body of Sa-amun are deeply stained 



THE FAMINE. 155 

with some strong astringent like palm wine or oil of 
cedar. We have already mentioned, that cassia, or 
cinnamon, and myrrh, were most distinctly percep- 
tible in the spicery that filled the cavities of the 
body, as well as ladanum, which is mentioned along 
with them in the Scripture account of the imports 
of spices from Canaan. 

The examination of this mummy also brought to 
light the circumstance, that the mode of applying 
the spices underwent considerable modification in 
the time that thence elapsed before the visit of He- 
rodotus, like the use of the natron. In his days, 
the spice was only put into the cavities of the body : 
such is actually the case with mummies cotemporary 
with Herodotus. But when Sa-amun was em- 
balmed, not only were the cavities filled, but the 
whole surface of the body was embedded in a mass 
of spicery. The impossibility of replacing it in its 
present state when once the linen that bound it to 
the body had been removed, suggested the conclu- 
sion, that some of the ingredients of which it was 
compounded had been viscid or semi-fluid, and that 
it had at first been applied to the body in the form 
of a paste. The average depth of this layer of spi- 
cery was at least two inches, so that the quantity 
must have been enormous. Were we upon the his- 
tory of Egypt, it would be easy to discover, in the 
changed political circumstances of Egypt and the 



156 ISRAEL IN EGFPT. 

world at the two epochs in question, an abundant 
reason why the embalmers of the later period used 
some cheaper expedient, for the preservation of the 
body, than these costly compounds. 

We find therefore that no mummies now existing 
come within 1000 years of the epoch of Joseph, 
and also that the embalmer's art in Egypt under- 
went considerable modifications with the lapse of 
time. "We conclude from hence, that the only cer- 
tain and tangible illustration which the embalming 
of Jacob receives from the passages of Herodotus 
and Diodorus, is the establishment of the fact, that 
the art of embalming the dead was practised in 
Egypt in the days of these writers, as well as at the 
epoch of Joseph. 

"And forty days were fulfilled for him [Jacob]; 
for so are fulfilled the days of those that are em- 
balmed. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy 
days." Gen. 1. 3. 

The time occupied in the embalming and the 
attendant funeral ceremonies underwent, as might 
have been anticipated, far less change than the art 
itself, in the vast interval that separates the epoch 
of Joseph from that of Herodotus and Diodorus. — 
To the passage before us, therefore, these writers 
furnish a highly valuable illustration. According 
to Herodotus, the period assigned by religion, and 
on no account to be departed from, for the embalm- 



THE FAMINE. 157 

ing, was seventy days, u.s. Diodorus says, that the 
time occupied by the process was upwards of thirty 
days. Our text by reconciling these two passages, 
seems to indicate, that the same prescription pre- 
vailed at both epochs. The forty days were occu- 
pied in the actual process, the remaining thirty in 
the swathing and decoration of the mummy, and 
the weeping lasted for the whole seventy days. 

The customs that prevailed at this seventy days 
weeping for the dead, are so particularly specified 
by both authors, and are so remarkably illustrated 
by the paintings in the tomb of Sa-amun, at 
Gournou, that there can scarcely be a doubt, that in 
them we have the counterpart of that which took 
place on the death of Jacob. 

Herodotus says, that on the death of an Egyptian, 
the females of the household covered their heads 
and faces with mud, and leaving the house, went 
about the streets uncinctured, and howling, and 
beating themselves. The men also beat themselves, 
but did not defile their persons nor wear their gar- 
ments unbound. Lib. ii. 83. Diodorus repeats all 
these particulars, with the addition, that the family 
of the deceased neither used the bath, nor drank 
wine, nor changed their garments during this cere- 
mony, which lasted the whole time that the body 
was in the embalmer's hands. 

The mourning for the father of Sa-amun which 



158 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

is represented on the wall of the tomb at Gournou, 
where his body was found, so remarkably illustrates 
these particulars, that we have great pleasure in 
introducing it. See Plate /. 

The occurrence here depicted, must have taken 
place betwen six and seven hundred years before 
the times of Herodotus. So that it is not easy to 
conceive of any ancient fact receiving a more per- 
fect illustration than is supplied by these ancient 
authorities to the mourning of the Egyptians for 
Jacob. 

" And when the days of weeping for him [lit. his 
weeping] were past, Joseph spake unto the house of 
Pharaoh saying v Gren. 1. 4. 

By the house of Pharaoh we are to understand 
Pharaoh in council, that is, Pharaoh and the estates 
of Egypt. The word " house/' had in Egyptian a 
meaning very similar to that which we apply to it 
in the phrase " houses of Parliament/' i. e., parlia- 
ment. Thus the hieroglyphic group for a banquet 
or festal assemblage is *f litt, " a good house or 
apartment/' i. e., a room well garnished for the 
guests. In the same manner the group which ex- 
actly translates the expression before us, ^o lit. 
" the king's house " is frequently used in the texts 
with the sense of " council," and even of " acts of 
council." These figurative uses of the word jp or 
' house or dwelling," are of importance in the 



THE FAMINE. 159 

interpretation of the hieroglyphic texts. Our re- 
marks upon them in this place are rendered neces- 
sary by the circumstance, that the phrase n3T)S n*a 
with the import of " council, or entourage^ of Pha- 
raoh " is scarcely Hebrew, though (as we have seen) 
it was a very common mode of expression in ancient 
Egypt. 

" If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, 
I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father 
made me swear, saying, Lo, I die : in the grave 
which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, 
there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me 
go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will 
come again. And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury 
thy father, according as he made thee swear. And 
Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him 
went up all the court of Pharaoh, even the nobles 
of his palace, and all the nobles of the land of Egypt. 
And all the household of Joseph, and of his brethren, 
and his father's household. Only their little ones, 
their flocks and their herds, they left in the land of 
Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots 
and horsemen : and it was a very great company. 
And they came to the plain of Atad, which is be- 
yond Jordan, and there they lamented a great lamen- 
tation, and a heavy. And Joseph made the funeral 
abel '3_N of his father for seven days. And when 
the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the 



160 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

mourning in the plain of Atad, they said, This is a 
great funeral from Egypt. Therefore the name of 
it was called Abel Mizraim, "the funeral of Egypt/' 
Gen. 1. 4—11. 

Egypt mourned for Jacob with the mourning of 
a king. No more solemn pomp, no higher or more 
regal state could have followed the bier on which 
the mummy of Pharaoh journeyed to its long home. 
The sons of Pharaoh, the princes and the nobles, 
the commanders of the armies, the judges, all were 
there. The chariots and horses of Pharaoh and of 
the great ones of Egypt swelled the pomp of the 
procession. The scene before us was no ordinary 
one. It was not an event of frequent or even occa- 
sional occurrence, like the funeral of one of the 
kings or nobles of the country. The funeral rites 
which were celebrated for seven successive days on 
the plains of Atad, were sufficiently removed from 
either of these categories, to be recorded in the tra- 
ditions of Canaan, and to give to the place where 
they were celebrated, a name commemorative of 
them, which it still retained in the days when 
Moses wrote, and long afterwards. 

We can scarcely review the life of this patriarch 
thus associated with its closing scene, without calling 
to remembrance the promise of Him whom Jacob 
had served so perseveringly and so faithfully : " Them 
that honour me, I will honour/' 1 Sam. ii. 30. 



THE FAMINE. 161 

The existing monuments of Ancient Egypt do not 
fail us here, any more than on those former occa- 
sions on which we have appealed to them. The 
word we render " noble/' is, in the original, the 
literal translation of a title whereby the collective 
nobility of Egypt is signified on monuments of all 
epochs. ^}f This epithet was long ago detected 
by Champollion in the Greek transcription of the 
name of one of the gods of Egypt, Haroeris, i. e. 
" Hor," (Horus) — Oeris " the greater/' " the elder/' 
As a title of honor, it is of constant occurrence in 
the inscriptions on the tombs and coffins of princes. 
It was supposed to have vanished altogether from 
the Coptic texts, save in the reflex shadow of it, 
adumbrated by the interrogative pronoun OTEP, 
" how great/' quantus ? It was the sagacity of 
Samuel Birch, of the British Museum, that first 
pointed out its existence there, under the redupli- 
cated form of hello " old." This was the primitive 
sense of the group which the inspired writer fol- 
lowed, translating it by )p1 " elder." Its determi- 
native is a man bearing the staff with which age 
supports its tottering steps : 

— pedibus me 
Porto meis et manu nullo subeunte bacillo. 

— Juvenal. Sat. III. 

This staff had become a symbol' of office in Egypt 
altogether irrespective of age, long before the time 

M 



162 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

of Joseph. In that time, and afterwards, the use 




of this group in the texts to express nobility is so 
frequent, that it almost becomes pronominal. 

The word b^N abel, with the sense of " mourning/' 
" funeral rite/' occurs in the Egyptian texts of all 
transcriptions, with the elision of the moveable 
letter I or r final. In the Coptic texts hebi means 
"to mourn ;" in hieroglyphics $©J hb or ub means 
funeral ceremonies generally, like its Hebrew coun- 
terpart. The initial iJ} which is interpreted by j[ 
h or u, is the picture of the banquet-hall with pillars 
of a tomb, like those at Beni Hassan, Essiout, and 
other localities in Middle Egypt. They are noble 
vaults, excavated in the solid rock, and supported 
by columns which have been left when the sur- 
rounding solid was removed. In those halls were 



THE FAMINE. 163 

held the appointed periodical banquets for the dead. 
Square pits of great depth were hewn in the floors, 
and in these the mummies were deposited. The 
Egyptian artists, who knew nothing of perspective, 
represented these pits by the lozenge in the centre 
of the base. © The name of this hall has been 
eb, or hebi* which thence came to be also the ap- 
pellative of the ceremonies observed in it. 

" And his (Jacob's) sons did unto him according 
as he commanded them : for his sons carried him 
into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave 
of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought 
with the field for a possession of a burying-place of 
Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre." Gen. 1. 12, 13. 

The funeral ceremonies, according to the ritual 
of Egypt, having been completed at Atad, the sons 
of Israel alone proceed to the cave of Machpelah, 
bearing to its final resting-X->lace the embalmed body 
of their father. Of the observances which took 
place on the burial of the dead with the clan or sept 
of Abraham at this time, we know nothing. The 
few practices on such occasions mentioned any 
where in the inspired narrative, are those natural 
expressions of grief which are common to all man- 
kind. We can only infer from the very peculiar 
circumstances of their sojourn in Canaan, that they 
were perfectly free from all admixture with the 

* ThebnW ebel of the Hebrew text. 
M 2 



164 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

idolatries of Canaan and of Egypt. Yet, in order 
to the right understanding of that narrative, it is 
very needful to keep in mind, that the chosen seed 
of Abraham was not at this particular period com- 
missioned to make any especial protest, either direct 
or indirect, against these idolatries, beyond that of 
not immediately participating in their acts of wor- 
ship. They were as yet very few in number, and 
they dwelt in the midst of nations who were engaged 
in corrupting the truth regarding God and the future 
state, by overlaying it with coarse earthly symbols : 
but much that was true still remained in the reli- 
gions both of Egypt and Canaan, and this truth the 
Israelites of course held in common with them. 
Four hundred years afterwards, at the time of the 
Exodus, the case was very different. We make no 
greater mistake, than when, following the guidance 
of the vain, fruitless speculations of the so-called 
learning of the last two centuries, we assume that 
the idolatries of Egypt and Canaan were already 
venerable and well-established superstitions in the 
patriarchal times. The Bible declares the direct op- 
posite to this. There was much right acquaintance 
with the true God in these times both in Egypt (Glen, 
xii. 17 — 20, &c.) and Canaan. (Gen. xx. 1 — 7 ; xxvi. 
6 — 11.) It is, moreover, expressly declared in the 
same inspired narrative, of one of the most offensive 
members of the Canaanite confederation, the Amo- 



THE FAMINE. 165 

rites, (Gen. xv. 16,) that at the time of the call of 
Abram their idolatrous perversion of the truth J137 
was not yet completed, and therefore the judgments 
against them were delayed for 600 years. The 
general definitions of idolatry, moreover, embodied 
in Grod's revelation to man, declare it to be a cor- 
ruption of the truth regarding religion ; (Rom. i. 
20 — 23, &c.) but corruption is a gradual and pro- 
gressive change : and to assume that at so early a 
period as the one before us ; that change had already 
been completely undergone by the religious opinions 
both of Egypt and Canaan, is also to assume that 
mankind had already existed on the earth, as it 
then was, for some millennia of years, — a position 
which the Bible contradicts, which the traditive 
history of all nations contradicts, and which the 
existing monuments of Egypt contradict likewise, 
and no less emphatically than either of the other 
two witnesses. This is the question really in de- 
bate between the believer and the infidel at this 
moment, — the length of time during which man 
has been upon the earth as it now is, — in other 
words, the number of years that have elapsed since 
the deluge ; for this reason we state our convictions 
upon it at length. 

The rites which took place on the plains of Atad, 
at which the armies of Egypt and the flower of her 
nobility assisted, would admit of a very ample com- 



166 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

merit from the tombs. But as thereby we should 
illustrate the customs, not of Israel, but of Egypt, 
it will suffice to mention here, that they consisted 
principally of banquets and of games of strength 
and agility. In these last the funeral games of 
Greece had, doubtless, their origin. The very few 
notices of the Hebrew funeral customs, which are 
to be found in the Bible, do not justify us in as- 
suming that either of these practices ever obtained 
among the descendants of Abraham. 

" And Joseph returned into Egypt, he and his 
brethren, and all that went up with him, to bury 
his father, after he had buried his father. 

" And when Joseph's brethren saw that their 
father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradven- 
ture hate us, and will certainly requite us all the 
evil that we did to him. And they charged Joseph 
(as his elder brothers) saying, Thy father did com- 
mand before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto 
Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now the trespass of 
thy brethren and their sin : for they did unto thee 
evil : and now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of 
the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph 
wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren 
also went up and fell down before his face ; and 
they said, Behold, we are thy servants ! And Joseph 
said unto them, Fear not : am I in the place of 
God ? For though ye thought evil against me, God 



THE FAMINE. 167 

meant it unto good, that what is done this day 
might come to pass, even the saving alive of much 
people. Now, therefore, fear ye not, I will nourish 
you and your little ones. And he comforted them 
and spake to their hearts/' Gen. 1. 14 — 21. 

This is the last recorded transaction in the life 
of Joseph. Like so many of his former acts, it 
needs no ethical comment : for, " thereby he being 
dead yet speaketh," and to the heart of every man 
who is privileged to peruse his history. 

" And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's 
house ; and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. 
And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third 
descent : the children also of Machir the son of Ma- 
nasseh were brought up on Joseph's knees. 

u And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die, and 
God will surely visit you and bring you out of this 
land, which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to 
Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children 
of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye 
shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph 
died the son of a hundred and ten years/' Verses 
22—26. 

" Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; 
for the end of that man is peace/' Psalm xxxvii. 
37. 

We must now ascertain the year of the sojourn 
of Israel in Egypt, wherein Joseph's death took 



168 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

place. He was thirty years old when he first stood 
before Pharaoh (Gren. xli. 36). The immigration 
into Egypt took place in the second year of the 
famine, (cxlv. 6,) which, at the utmost, cannot have 
been more than ten years afterwards. It follows, 
therefore, that when Joseph died, Israel had been 
in Egypt for seventy years. 

" And they embalmed him (Joseph) and he was 
put into a coffin in Egypt/' Verse 26. 

The imperfect mode of embalming (in use at this 
time) upon which the practitioners of the art so 
greatly improved afterwards, would abundantly 
suffice to keep the mummy in perfect beauty and 
fragrance for the 400 years that elapsed before 
Joseph was committed to his tomb in Canaan. It 
is for ten times that duration that it has proved 
unequal to rescue the flesh of man from corruption. 

The mortal remains of Joseph were not buried in 
Egypt. His coffin, upon the lid of which was 
moulded with plaster and coloured, as exact a 
likeness of his countenance, (which, doubtless, called 
up vividly the remembrance of him to his imme- 
diate survivors) as art in Egypt could accomplish, 
occupied a very conspicuous and most honorable 
place in the house of Ephraim his first-born. Mum- 
mies in Ancient Egypt were heir-looms highly 
valued, and upon certain occasions pledges for loans 
of money. The fragrant odour emitted by the spices 



THE FAMINE. 169 

in which they were embalmed, made them welcome 
inmates in halls of entertainment ; so much so, that 
the sepulture was often deferred for centuries, so 
that many successive generations were frequently 
ranged upright against the walls of the grand hall 
of entertainment in the family mansion. They 
were, in short, exactly as the family portraits of 
our great houses in modern times. 

This very strange custom, which renders so per- 
fectly natural and in order the dying request of 
Joseph, is minutely described by Diodorus Siculus 
(lib. i. c. 91). Its existence also at a time absolutely 
cotemporary with that of Joseph is recorded in the 
tomb of the chief physician Nahrai- at Beni Hassan. 
The noble vault which was the banquet-hall of this 
tomb is thirty feet square, and of an elevation which 
harmonizes admirably with this dimension. The 
roof is triple arched, and the two groinings are sup- 
ported by four square fluted massives. A long 
hieroglyphic inscription, in 222 short columns, runs 
round the surbase of this hall : the rest of the walls 
being decorated with pictures of the arts of common 
life and the funeral banquet, according to the rigid 
prescription of religion for all the tombs of Egypt. 
The inscription embodies the names of six successive 
representatives of the family to which its deep 
mummy-pits (one of which is open and plundered 
in the floor of the hall) served as a place of sepul- 



170 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ture. Nahrai the excavator commemorates the gifts 
in land and canals of irrigation presented to his 
father and grandfather by the two first monarchs of 
the twelfth dynasty. We have already explained 
that the reign of the former of these Pharaohs 
(Amenemes I.) commenced during the sojourn of 
Abram in Egypt. 

The son of Nahrai, En-sha, continues the inscrip- 
tion on the death of his father, and on his death 
his son Nuhotph again proceeds with it. Nuhotph 
was cotemporary with Amuntimoeus the fifth king 
of this dynasty, whom Saites the Lower Egyptian 
dispossessed of Memphis. 

This disaster to the Theban Pharaohs is silently 
but most significantly commemorated in the inscrip- 
tion before us. At the end of Nuhotph's contribu- 
tion to it is a votive tablet, representing a man 
sitting at a table of shew-bread in the act of pre- 
senting it. The style of art which prevailed when 
this tablet was executed, was altogether different 
from that of the rest of the tomb. It calls to mind 
the execution of the tombs at Elythya in Upper 
Egypt, which were excavated in the times of the 
eighteenth dynasty, about 200 years after those of 
Nuhotph. The inscription that follows it exactly 
fills up the entire surbase of the hall. It was added 
by a representative of the family named fg\"f q^ 
Souk-enh " the living crocodile : " but the paintings 



THE FAMINE. 171 

which cover the rest of the walls of this gorgeous 
vault enable us to state distinctly that he was nei- 
ther his son, his grandson, nor even his great-grand- 
son. All the house of Nahrai to that degree, and 
to the number of more than a hundred individuals, 
are represented there, and no one of them bears the 
name of Sukenes. It was therefore in the sense of 
remote descendant that Sukenes wrote himself the 
son of Nahrai, whose family he represented. The 
name tells the disastrous history of the descendants 
of these heros of Upper Egypt, whose glories had 
been shared by the ancestors of Sukenes. The in* 
scription itself records the fallen fortunes of his 
house. 

After the loss of Memphis, Amun-timaeus seems to 
have left the especial service of the gods of that 
city, who (in his notion doubtless) had forsaken 
him, and to have put himself under the tutelage of 
the god of the city nearest Memphis that still re- 
mained in his hands, which was Crocodilopolis in 
the Faium. Here he built the temple and palace 
which, in the days of Herodotus, was one of the 
wonders of Egypt, under the name of the Laby- 
rinth, and the remains of which, bearing the name 
of Amun-timaeus everywhere, were cleared from the 
sand about seven years ago by Lepsius. This temple 
was dedicated to the local god of the place, Sevek 
or Souk, the crocodile. Herodotus expressly men- 



172 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



tions this fact.* The two or three ill-fated indivi- 
viduals that succeeded Amun-timseus on the tot- 
tering throne of the Mencherian Pharaohs all took 
the crocodile in the second ring of their royal names. 
And when the Lower Egyptians, or the famine, or 
both,' drove them from the Faium and Middle 
Egypt, they instituted the worship of the crocodile 
in the two cities they founded in the Upper country, 
Elethya and Ombos. 

The name Sukenes, therefore, plainly indicates 
that the family of Nahrai had remained faithful to 
the royal house of their patrons. The inscription 




PORCH OP THE TOMB OF NAHRAI. 

* Lib. ii. c. 148. 



THE FAMINE. 1 73 

he has engraven on the wall tells as plainly that 
.it had shared in their disasters also. It was pro- 
bably inscribed after the expulsion of the Lower 
Egyptians from this part of Middle Egypt, late in 
the eighteenth dynasty. Sukenes tells us in it, that 
he had put up a door of wood to the banquet-hall, 
and a fence of wood to the porch of the tomb, which 
remains to this day, one of the most beautiful objects 
in Egypt. Both closures had originally been of 
metal, as the scratches on the rock still show visibly. 
He also commemorates certain other repairs that he 
had made, so that the tomb had been plundered by 
the conquerors. He concludes with an address to 
the mummy of Nahrai the excavator of the tomb, 
inviting him to come in and lie down in the resting- 
place which the piety of his descendant had thus 
made ready for him. 

Here then was the mummy of a man who had 
died almost two centuries before the times of Joseph, 
but was not interred until more than two centuries 
afterwards. 

So pregnant is this illustration, that we presume 
it will be an apology for the long historical detail 
which has been required to introduce it. 

We have already explained the extraordinary no- 
tions and customs that prevailed in Egypt regarding 
the body after death, its embalming, and its final 
resting-place. Their prevalence may possibly have 
prepared the reader in some measure for a state- 



174 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ment we are very reluctant to make, so little does 
it seem to comport with the spirit of truth and 
soberness in which it is our earnest desire to carry 
on the present inquiry. There are at Sacchara, 
immediately over against Memphis, the ruins of the 
tomb of a prince in Egypt, whose name was that of 
Joseph, written in hieroglyphics. It is in the close 
vicinity of the largest pyramid of that group, which, 
from other circumstances, we assume to have been 
that of Aphophis and his father Meris. The titles 
and offices held by this personage were also those of 
Joseph. He was ^ | llf; "chief ab-rech/'* and "director 
of the granaries tf all Egypt," JJ^ ggTfllM 
as well as the possessor of several other offices. The 
name has been assimilated to an Egyptian phrase 
expressive of Joseph's function in Egypt, [j^r^l 



i-suphj " he came to save ; " Copt. " he will save. ; 
The letters are so exactly those of Joseph's name— 
^D^ — that the identity does not seem to admit of 
question. It may have been that, as in other cases, 
his tomb was carried on at the public expense, as a 
mark of public respect and esteem ; but we must 
confess we incline to the opinion, that at a late 
period in the life of Joseph, the Egyptian successor 
to his offices had also assumed his name, and that he 
was the excavator of the tomb. We give here his 
portrait and his titles. 

* Gen xli. 4, 5. See above, p. 55. 




RELIEF PROM THE TOMB OF JOSEPH. 



176 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN — RISE OF THE NEW 

KING. 

We do not here discuss the question of the duration 
of the sojourn. It will soon appear that if the Greek 
lists of the kings of Egypt gave us reliable chrono- 
logy, it must have lasted 430 years. But such was 
by no means the case. The question therefore still 
remains an open one, notwithstanding their tes- 
timony. 

From our historical authorities, we obtain two 
certainties regarding this period. The one is, that 
the patron of Joseph was the shepherd king Apho- 
phis. This (as we have already explained) . is the 
concurrent testimony of all the Egyptian records 
translated by the Greeks. The other certainty appears 
upon the monuments, and their testimony is equally 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 177 

clear and irresistible. It is the name of the king 
that knew not Joseph. 

The time of the rise of the new king is our first 
question. We have ascertained that Aaron was born 
eighty-three years, and Moses eighty years before the 
Exodus. It further appears from the inspired nar- 
rative, that the infanticidal decree of the new king 
(Exod. i. 22.) had been issued in the interval be- 
tween the two births : for on the birth of Aaron 
(Exod. vi. 20.) no concealment was required, such 
as took place on that of Moses, chap. ii. 1 — 7. Seven 
years being allowed for the former attempts to keep 
down xhe numbers of Israel, (which is probable 
enough, chap. i. 8 — 21,) would give us ninety years 
before the Exodus for the rise of the new king. 

The cotemporary monuments of this epoch are 
numerous, but their testimony is obscure and hard 
to understand. The histories collected by the curi- 
osity of the later Greeks, about the time of our 
Saviour, from the temple records of Egypt, are the 
other source of our knowledge. They exactly re- 
semble all other histories written in similar circum- 
stances. A vast mass of fable, often incoherent, 
has accumulated upon a skeleton or frame-work of 
truth. The very laborious collation of these two, 
has done something to expose the fables of the one, 
and to unravel the perplexities of the other. It is 



178 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

with this something, and with this alone, that we 
intend to trouble our readers. 

We must of necessity commence with a brief sum- 
mary of the previous history of Egypt. 

The temple records open with the statement that 
when Menes the human founder of the kingdom 
ascended the throne, Egypt had been governed by 
the gods for more than 17,000 years. The monu- 
ments disclose the origin of this manifest fiction. 
The first gods of Egypt were the patriarchs of the 
Old World, who were made in some cases local gods 
of cities founded by their descendants. In other 
instances they were themselves the founders of the 
cities wherein they were worshipped after their 
death. It was the well-known long lives of men 
before the flood, and immediately after it, that ori- 
ginated the fable of the 17,000 years. 

In order to prove this point, namely, that the first 
gods of Egypt were dead men, and the patriarchs 
of the Bible, we take the opportunity of giving here 
the few notices of this false religion which are 
required to illustrate the text before us. 

\ JtnnJs^xJl a ^ m > *' e# D ^ Adam, the father of man- 
kind. He was the local god of the city of On, or 
Heliopolis, the capital of Aphophis, and at all times 
one of the capitals of Egypt. He was the human 
impersonation of the sun, which was " the father of 



EGYPT DURIXG THE SOJOURN. 179 

all the gods " of Egypt. All idolatry seems to have 
began with the notion that the sun was God. 

SUfr^ or ^MM or ^®s& nu or nuh > Hi: Noah, 
the god of the annual overflow, and of water gene- 
rally. The city in which he w r as first worshipped 
we shall find presently. He was afterwards made 
local at any new point to the southward of former 
settlements in the valley in which a city was built. 
He was often named ^V^k nu ' mu > that is " No 
or Noah of the waters/' He was also named 
" father of the gods/' in allusion, doubtless, to the 
post-diluvian origin of mankind. 

j^ os-i?H, Osiris, called afterwards Mizraim, 
D^SXD- He was first named n*r* " the potter/' It 
was changed to Mizraim, " two cities," when Menes 
founded Memphis. Other names were also changed 
for like purposes. This father of ancient Egypt 
most probably died and was buried at Busiris in 
the Delta, where he was afterwards local god. In 
this circumstance originated a number of myths or 
fables, wherein he was made king of the dead ; — 
being, as we have elsewhere explained, the rightful 
king of all Egyptians, as the father of the race. 
The changes in the religion of Egypt introduced by 
King Mencheres, in which began the civil broils 
which Abram is said to have composed during his 
sojourn in Egypt, were all of them connected with 
the worship of Osiris. 

N 2 



180 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

VJ iJ $&> i e. N::b, Seba the son of Cush. Gen. 
x. 7. He is the youngest of all the deified men in 
the system. For this reason he is entitled ^^Hll 
c ■ youngest of the gods/' The city in which he was 
local was Crocodilopolis in Middle Egypt, which 
was near Abydos. This was one reason why, very 
long afterwards, he was feigned to be the father of 
Osiris. 

°Sx3 Phtha or pth, i. e. &1B Phut, the brother of 
Mizraim. Gren. x. 6. Menes, the founder of the 
monarchy, was the first of the clan of Mizraim to 
cross the Nile and colonize the western bank. Phut 
has given its Egyptian name to the bow, (Copt, phit 
hieroglyphic pt,) either because he was its in- 
ventor, or because he greatly excelled in the use of 
it. The Nile seems to have been the limit of the 
territories of Mizraim and Phut on the first peopling 
of North-East Africa. When Menes crossed the 
Nile, he made the patriarch of the district the 
local god of his new city. All pictures of the idol 
Phtha (i. e. Phut deified) have a green skin ; which 
denotes conventionally the sallow hue acquired by 
light- complexioned races when first exposed to the 
sun of the desert. The family of Phut is not given 
in the Bible. He had probably nine sons ; for his 
descendants, the negroes of the Lybian desert, were 
named in hieroglyphics ||2l *• e - *^ e n ^ ne nations 
of the Phutim. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 181 

\fi£$& amn or hmn y the patriarch DJ1 Ham. In 
one dialect of Egyptian every final m took an n 
after it. He was first deified at Peremoun in the 
Delta. The introducer of Ham into Upper Egypt 
has left the record of it in his own name. He was 
the king who founded the twelfth dynasty of the 
lists. He seems to have colonized Eastern Thebes, 
and to have made Ham or Amoun the local god of 
his new city. For this reason he named himself 
( IS^^jjJ or 0^p^ i. e. " the beginner or 
bringer-in of Amun/' In later times Amun became 
one of the greatest gods in Egypt, as the tutelary 
of the race of kings by whom the shepherds were 
expelled. Many of the great revolutions that shook 
the monarchy during the period now before us, ori- 
ginated in the pretensions of Amun to rule over the 
gods of other cities. 

These will sufficiently prove the truth of our 
statement, that the gods of Egypt were dead men. 
They were demons (Salves) only in the sense of 
" the souls of dead men/' and not in that of " fallen 
spirits " or " devils/' as is generally supposed. The 
inventors of this mythology were well acquainted 
with the truth regarding this mysterious subject, 
as it was taught by the patriarchal tradition. Of 
this the following group affords us a perfectly satis- 
factory evidence. 



182 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

pggg^ st-oni* (2c&»w$, Plutarch de IsideJ "Seth or 
Sethonis," " the Author of Evil/' Book of the Dead, 
Part II. The evil principle of the Egyptian my- 
thology. Hebrew jtafe, Satan. 

The goddesses were probably the deified wives of 
the primitive patriarchs. As their names have not 
been preserved in Scripture, they of course cannot 
be identified.f Some of the early gods are also in 
the same position. Month or Mars, Thoth, the god 
of wisdom, Anubis, the guardian of the tomb, and 
others, are doubtless deifications of cotemporaries 
and relatives of Ham and Mizraim, whose names do 
not appear in the Bible. 

These deified men were regarded at first as mere 

* The character WM\ is a block of stone. It is fully written thus 
D £m£f on, in the Coptic texts " a stone." The last character is a man 
wearing a mask representing the head of an ass, which is the conven- 
tional determinative of all groups expressing the names of foreign gods 
and evil spirits. The use of the block of stone to express the sound of 
the syllables o»«, exemplifies a not unfrequent application of pictures in 
writing foreign words in hieroglyphics. The name Osiris is thus written 
25 oshe, Copt, "a throne." <^^: iri, Copt, "an eye.'" osh-iri.— 
There are many other instances. 

f We are only able to give one exception. It is the name of the wife 
of Athom or Adam. She was the Venus of the Mythology. Her name 
was written by the Greeks a&eop Hatlior. It stood thus in hieroglyphics, 
f^j eit-hor, " the house or habitation of Horus," i. e. of the filial 
deity from whom also descended the rest of the gods. [_J ei or ev 
" a house," seems to be the transcription of HIP? Eve, the mother of 
mankind. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 183 

city gods : having no particular attribute of divinity 
beyond that of the protection of the district in 
which they were worshipped. Even Adam is 
scarcely identified with the sun in the tombs of 
Ghizeh. Noah is the only exception. He is con- 
nected with the overflow, and the waters of the 
Xile from the beginning. 

The consciousness of their worshippers that the 
gods had once been men, is remarkably exemplified 
by the circumstance that the first kings of Egypt 
were also made gods on their death, and were wor- 
shipped in their pyramids as in temples. In the 
tombs of the princes of Egypt of the most remote 
epoch, the deceased kings are at the least on a level 
with the gods ; and an office connected with the 
worship of Suphis, for example, in the Great Pyra- 
mid, is named before the priesthood of Phtha in the 
list of a prince's titles. The reform of ITencheres 
seems to have been especially directed against this 
multiplication of gods ; for this king-worship does 
not appear in the tombs of his adherents. It must 
nevertheless be understood that the gods entirely 
lost all their human relations, save their names, 
when they were once enshrined. "Whatever were 
the motives of the first introducers of them, they 
afterwards formed combinations and connexions 
altogether independent of their former earthly po- 
sitions. Mizraim, for example, was made the son 



184 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

of Sebah his nephew, and Phut was the first-born 
of Adam. When these myths were invented, the 
memory of the men had perished altogether. 

This man -worship exhibited, very soon after its 
invention, its tendency to go downwards in the scale 
of existence. Cechous, the second king of the 
second dynasty, is said in the Greek lists to have 
introduced into Egypt the worship of animals. This 
worship is noted on the earliest Egyptian monu- 
ments that exist, as well as on the latest. The 
motives which at first induced the inventors of this 
most degraded idolatry to assign certain animals to 
certain gods, were various, and do not appear to 
have followed any particular rule. The animal in 
which Nu or Noah was worshipped was the ram or 
goat ; for there is scarcely a distinction between the 
two animals in hot countries. The circumstance 
that the goat under the name of Mendes was the 
sacred animal of a city in the eastern Delta, to 
which it gave its name, (see above) decides that 
Noah was the local god of the nome of Mendes. It 
is very supposeable that the traditive memory of 
the circumstance that an animal so serviceable to 
man had been saved in the ark, would suggest this 
association. The bull was the animal impersona- 
tion of Adam at Heliopolis. It was named Mnevis 
" \ We know nothing of the reason why. Ptha 
at Memphis had also a bull for his sacred animal. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 185 

His name was Apis. The comparison of the names 
of the god and his bull in hieroglyphics throws a 
little light upon the notions which were in the 
minds of the inventors. g£ pth has been altered 
from Phut g by the addition of a letter, to assimi- 
late it in sound to the word nnD pth " to open/' 
ci disclose/' (in Egyptian photh " to write in 
hieroglyphics/') Apis is written £§ hp which is 
merely the god's name inverted, and with a direct 
inversion of its meaning also. The initial ff is the 
pent-house or screen, whence oracular responses 
were given in the temples of Egypt. The word 
hp, signifies u to hide," " to cover," in Egyptian 
and also in Hebrew rtzn- So that the man was 
the god manifest, and the beast the god concealed. 
We can give a rather better account of the sacred 
animal of Anubis, which was the dog or jackal, 
because he was the local god of Lycopolis in the 
Busiritic nome,* which was situated on the extreme 
north-eastern border of the Delta, where, being 
constantly exposed to the attacks of foreign enemies, 
great vigilance was required. The dog, we need 
not explain, denoted vigilance t 

Such was the religion of Egypt when Israel so- 
journed there, and partook in its idol ceremonies. 

* This city is mentioned in the Rosetta inscr. (line 28, Gr.) as "having 
been attacked by the Syrians in that day. 

t See Note at the end of this Chapter. 



186 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

It was the worship of dead men and live animals, 
and nothing more. All the mysticism, symbols, 
and combinations which somewhat veiled its gross- 
ness in after times, had not then been invented. 
The system was in its naked absurdity. For the 
regular succession of times and seasons, without 
disastrous interruptions like the seven years' fa- 
mine, — for aid in the various changes and chances in 
man's affairs, which he always feels to be out of his 
own control, — nay more, for all the hopes of the life 
to come, in which Egypt from the first most firmly 
believed, they were taught to betake themselves to 
these most ridiculous and impotent gods ; whose 
worshippers nevertheless, Egyptian as well as 
Israelite, fully acknowledge the truth that God is 
One. We might express our astonishment at this 
fatuity, were it not also exemplified in the present 
day, and by millions of living men. 

The process by which these local gods became 
afterwards, at different periods, gods in all Egypt, 
is easy to apprehend. Noah was apparently always 
so, for very obvious reasons. The Sun was also god 
everywhere, from the first : but whether Adam was 
always associated with him is not so clear. Anubis 
guarded all tombs, and therefore was wanted in 
every city. In other instances some signal success 
or good fortune befalling a city was placed to the 
credit of a local god, and crowds of worshippers from 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 187 

other parts of Egypt flocked to his shrine. The 
benefits of this intercourse would form another 
item in his favour ; his reputation would continue 
to advance, and shortly a shrine for his worship 
would appear in the temple of some neighbouring 
city. The jealousy which this intruder awoke in 
the original holder of the fane was allayed by 
another expedient. One of the seers beheld in 
vision, or an oracle proclaimed from beneath the 
pent-house, that the two gods were in fact nearly 
connected, and that the new-comer was heartily 
welcomed by his affectionate relative. Thus origi- 
nated the family ties among the gods of Egypt. On 
the other hand, when a calamity befel a city or 
district, the local god bore the blame, and his 
shrine was neglected for that of some more pro- 
pitious or powerful divinity. There is no greater 
mistake than to assume, with most writers on this 
subject, that the idolatry of Egypt was a system 
complete from the first, and never undergoing any 
change afterwards. Three great political revolu- 
tions befel Egypt in the interval which is now be- 
fore us. Every one of them was a religious war, 
and resulted in great and radical changes in her 
mythology : so that the present explanation is im- 
peratively required for the right understanding of 
the history we have to relate. 

The history of the gods in Egypt is thus linked 



188 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

with that of the men who ruled there after them. 
The gods taught mankind the common arts of life, 
and made men fit to govern themselves. They then 
left the earth. "We now understand this. The gods 
of Egypt were men ; — the first settlers and their an- 
cestors. This is the framework of the fable. It is 
itself a reconstruction most shapeless and unsightly, 
of that oldest of all traditions, that knowledge of 
every kind came at first from Grod. 

The first settlers, we now find, formed encamp- 
ments, and built cities along the eastern bank of 
the easternmost mouth of the Nile — the Phathmetic 
branch. They made their capital Heliopolis. In 
this city the hieroglyphic system of writing was 
invented, and for this reason it always remained 
the seat of learning in Egypt. Here also the first 
stone temple seems to have been built to Adam, as 
the human impersonation of the sun : for one of 
the invariable epithets of Athom is "god of the 
great temple." The temples of the other cities of 
the first settlers were built with bricks of Nile mud. 

Very shortly after the first settlement — certainly 
within a hundred years, Menes crossed the Nile and 
built Memphis. With him begins the human his- 
tory of Egypt. Five dynasties of kings are enumer- 
ated in the Greek lists as having reigned after him. 
Some of these now turn out to be cotemporary. 
We also know from the monuments that the power 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 189 

of these successors of Menes was confined to Memphis 
and its neighbourhood, and that the valley to the 
southward was still waste and uninhabited, save at 
certain points, of which Abydos, (about a hundred 
miles from Memphis on the southern border of 
Middle Egypt) was the extreme limit to the south- 
ward. 

This epoch was brought to a close by the reli- 
gious changes, and the wars consequent upon them, 
of Menes, the last monarch of the fifth dynasty, as 
he appears to have been on the monuments. Its 
duration seems to have been about 300 years. 

Hitherto the Greek lists and the monuments are 
in tolerable harmony, but we now enter upon an 
epoch when they are in utterly hopeless disagree- 
ment. Six dynasties of all but nameless kings in 
the lists, reigning for nearly a thousand years, are 
represented on the monuments by six successive 
monarchs only. The study of these combined docu- 
ments shows clearly that advantage was taken in 
later times, of anarchies and civil broils, when the 
records of Egypt were imperfectly kept, to insert 
therein fabulous reigns and centuries, for the pur- 
pose of exaggerating the antiquity of Egypt, Such 
a commotion did take place at this time ; for the 
capital of the successors of Mencheres was no longer 
Memphis. It, however, did not last long, for the 
arts underwent no degradation in the interval of 



190 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

its occurrence. It was in this interval that Abram 
sojourned in Egypt, and is said to have composed 
the religious feuds in which the civil war ori- 
ginated. 

The succession afterwards is a very intricate 
question, belonging to the history of Egypt, and not 
to that of Israel. It appears that while the six 
monarchs, who as adherents to the reforms of Men- 
cheres are recorded in the monuments, reigned at 
Abydos, another succession of weak and inglorious 
kings still maintained the old pyramid worship in 
some cities in the eastern Delta. 

The cessation of this civil war is denoted by the 
sudden return of the Greek lists to exact harmony 
with the hieroglyphic pedigrees of the kings of 
Egypt. The names of seven kings, reigning for about 
a century and a half, are recorded with wonderfully 
little variation in both documents. This is the 
twelfth dynasty of the lists. The monuments show 
that the crowns of Egypt were hereditary during 
these seven descents. They also show that Egypt 
enjoyed great material prosperity under the monarchs 
of the twelfth dynasty. These kings wrote their 
names in two rings or shields, which shows them to 
have been the adherents in religion to the reforms 
of Mencheres, as we have before explained. The 
second of these illustrious kings, (Sesortosis I.) made 
an addition to the temple of Adam at Heliopolis : 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 191 

but the names of none of his successors have been 
found either in that city or in any other locality of 
the Delta. The history suggested by this circum- 
stance is important, and will hereafter require con- 
sideration. The monuments show that, except at 
one or two isolated points, the rule of the monarchs 
of this dynasty was principally confined to Middle 
Egypt, on the western bank of the Nile. The founder 
of it opened in person the great canal or river of 
the Faium, which remains to this day under the 
name of the Bahr Iussuf. This fact is related in 
hieroglyphics in the tomb of Nahrai at Beni-hassan. 
The object of this canal was the irrigation of the 
singular valley that branches off from the Nile, about 
fifty miles south of Memphis, far into the western 
desert. It is at this day the province of the Faium. 
The wealth of the monarchy would be greatly in- 
creased by this noble work. During the reigns of 
the five last monarchs of the twelfth dynasty, the 
capitals of Egypt appear to have been, Memphis in 
the north, and in the south Abydos or Coptos, both 
cities close upon the southern limit of Middle Egypt. 
The grand object which this entire dynasty had in 
view, appears clearly from the monuments to have 
been, the extension of their dominions up the valley 
of the Nile to the southward. They colonized Upper 
Egypt. Before their times, Eilethya was the fur- 
thest point in this district, of which the Pharaohs 



192 ISRAEL m EGYPT. 

had possession. They also conquered Nubia, and 
added it to Egypt, up to the very borders of Ethiopia; 
driving out from both districts the descendants of 
Cush, who, though as far advanced in civilization 
as the Egyptians, were, from their numerous divi- 
sions into petty kingdoms, unable to contend with 
them. The monuments of the twelfth dynasty are 
the unerring witnesses of these historical facts. 

The inevitable consequence of this concentration 
of the efforts of the kings of Upper Egypt to the 
southward of their dominions, would be the neglect of 
their northern border. To the condition of northern 
Egypt in these remote epochs, we have already fre- 
quently alluded. The Delta was common ground to 
Egypt and Canaan. Even in the palmiest days of 
the successors of Menes, the shepherds of Canaan 
not only ranged undisturbed over the grassy plains 
of the Delta, but also depastured their flocks beneath 
the very walls of Memphis, and were evidently 
acknowledged as the allies or subjects of the mon- 
archy.* This state of things shortly before the visit 
of Abram to Egypt, renders perfectly harmonious 
and intelligible, all the particulars of it recorded in 
the inspired narrative. Attached by the fertility of 

* The shepherd Philitis was said by the priests to have been the 
builder of the pyramid of Suphis. He doubtless assisted in its construc- 
tion. It was through hatred of the memory of Suphis that this legend 
was preserved. Suphis, then, was more hateful than the shepherds. 
Herod. ii. 28. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 1.93 

the soil, vast multitudes of Canaanites had settled 
in the Delta in cities and encampments. They had 
adopted the religion of Egypt. This was inevitable, 
for the doctrine of local gods was universal in all 
ancient idolatries. They likewise adopted the man- 
ners, the language, the dress of Egypt, as well as its 
religion. They were, in a word, Egyptians in every 
thing but descent. This, however, was a point 
which, at this remote epoch, when the memories of 
the first dispersion were yet fresh in the minds of 
all men, would never be for a moment forgotten. 
This difference of race in ancient Egypt would ope- 
rate in exactly the same manner as the tinge of 
colour in modern colonies.* Notwithstanding the 
exactitude of his outward conformity, notwithstand- 
ing his useful, or social, or amiable qualities, the 
Canaanite would always remain a shepherd, an un- 
clean person, an abomination, in the eyes of the 
pure Egyptian. Such we apprehend to have been 
the state of things in the Delta during the period 
which the reforms of Mencheres brought to a termi- 
nation. 

The high praise which the priesthood of Egypt 
was never weary of pouring upon the name and 
memory of Mencheres, render it quite certain that 
the reforms in religion introduced by him, had for 

* The misethiopism of all European colonists is an infatuation, the 
fearful consequences of which are not } T et developed. 





194 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

one especial object the increase of the power and in- 
fluence of their order. In closer connection therewith, 
both the mythology and the ritual of worship were 
likewise settled by them, rendering the religion more 
exclusively Egyptian, and therefore more intolerant 
of all foreigners ; so that their very nature, and pro- 
bably enough design also, would be to exclude the 
Egypto-Canaanites in a body from their communion. 
This very powerful cause would combine with the 
alliance and friendship they had so long enjoyed 
with the old kings, to keep the shepherds true to 
the religion of the pyramids. It does not, however, 
appear that they took any part in the civil war that 
followed. They seem rather to have retired to their 
fastnesses amid the swamps of the Delta, and 
received there as refugees their co-religionists from 
the cities of Middle Egypt, whence they were ex- 
pelled by the Mencherian reformers. Their force 
would thus be concentrated and increased. 

The peace between the two factions does not ap- 
pear to have been of any long duration. The monu- 
mental facts of Heliopolis leave us to infer that this 
city was lost to the successors of Sesortosis I. So 
that either the civil war broke out again during his 
life-time, and Heliopolis was surprised and taken by 
the king-worshippers of the Delta, or it was ceded 
by treaty ; the Nile being made by mutual consent 
the boundary of the territories of two cotemporary 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 195 

and rival Pharaohs ; for with the single exception 
of the grottoes of Benihassan, there is not a locality 
in Egypt Proper on the eastern bank where any 
remains of the twelfth dynasty have been found. 

During the reigns of the three successors of Se- 
sortosis I. there appears to have been between the 
two Pharaohs an armed truce. It was nothing 
more ; for the monuments show that both succes- 
sions always pretended to the sovereignty of all 
Egypt. This lasted for about a century. The period 
corresponds with the declining years of Abraham, 
and the youth and manhood of Isaac. During this 
interval, while the western Pharaohs pursued their 
triumphs over the southern Cushites, the kings of 
the Delta, and of eastern Middle Egypt, seem to 
have been developing the fertility of the soil, plant- 
ing cities and cultivating commerce with their eas- 
tern neighbours in the Desert and in Canaan. The 
only evidence of this fact is negative, but very 
strong. The arts flourished greatly in their reigns ; 
and at the termination of the period, they were in 
force enough to cross the Nile and to take Memphis 
by a coup de main from their western neighbours. 
The cause of this revival of hostilities had been 
forgotten in the times of Josephus, and there is no- 
thing yet found in the monuments whence it could 
be inferred. They do however make it evident that 

Amun-Timasus made no strenuous eiforts to dis- 

2 



J 96 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

possess his rival Saites of the possession of Memphis. 
On the other hand, he evidently submitted to it as 
a divine dispensation : a token of the anger of the 
gods. This was precisely the account of the fall of 
Memphis, which Manetho found written in the 
temple-records. The proceedings of Amun-Timaeus, 
on the loss of his capital, are highly characteristic of 
ancient idolatry, and of the modes of thought that 
it produced. He made peace with the victor, pur- 
sued his conquests over Cush in the south, and with 
the spoils built, at the point nearest to Memphis 
which remained in his possession, a stately palace- 
temple, which he dedicated to the local divinity, 
— Sevek, " the crocodile/' or Seba. He adopted 
this god as the tutelary of his own family, nam- 
ing all his sons and daughters after him. This 
change of gods was doubtless suggested by the loss 
of Memphis. Nevertheless Amun-Timseus showed 
his respect for. or fear of, the religion which had 
dispossessed him of his capital, by building a pyra- 
mid for his own tomb close by his new palace : a 
form of sepulchre so strictly peculiar to the old 
religion, that it seems on this account to have been 
unanimously rejected by all the other royal adhe- 
rents to the reforms of Mencheres. 

The city in which Amun-Timaeus built his palace 
was situated in the Faium, to the fertility of which 
district his ancestors had so largely contributed by 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 197 

their works of engineering. The ruins of both pa- 
lace and pyramid remain to this day. They were 
discovered very recently by Dr. Lepsius. The city 
was afterwards named by the Greeks, Crocodilopolis. 

Aphophis, the patron of Joseph, appears on the 
monuments as the third successor of Saites the 
conqueror of Memphis, and founder of the city of 
Sais in the eastern Delta, whom the priesthood 
named Salatis in derision. The same unerring re- 
cords of the past also disclose the wonderful fact, 
that these monarchs were not shepherds by descent, 
but sons and heirs in the direct line, of Menes and 
the old Pharaohs ; so that the narrative of Moses 
is true to the jot and tittle. They were termed 
shepherd-kings, and their names were converted 
into nicknames, — because of the religious tenets 
they professed, and because of their tolerant and 
enlightened policy towards the Canaanites, — by the 
priests who kept the archives of Egypt in after 
ages. On the monuments, the greatest of the Pha- 
raohs were proud to enrol them in their pedigrees, 
among their ancestors. This point belongs to the 
history of Egypt* 

Aphophis, Phiops or Apappus (for by all these 
several names in the lists, the same individual is 
really designated) was one of the most magnificent 
of the Pharaohs. He is said to have ascended the 

* History of Egypt, Vol. ii. 



198 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

throne at six years of age, and to have been king of 
Egypt for a hundred years. The monuments give 
countenance to this tradition. He is repeatedly 
represented there as co-regent with his father and 
grandfather. The latter was the captor of Memphis. 
The known monuments of Aphophis are few 
hitherto : for the remains of Memphis and Helio- 
polis are still covered with sand. When they shall 
be disinterred we shall probably be in a position to 
say more upon the transactions of his long reign. 
Those however that remain tell unmistakeably of 
victory, prosperity, and the perfection of the fine 
arts. 

The only exploit of Aphophis, of which a monu- 
mental record remains, is the defeat of the Egyp- 
tians of the opposite faction. The deed of arms is 
commemorated in a superb tablet sculptured on the 
face of one of the granite cliffs of the Wady Meghara, 
in the Sinaitic peninsula. The tablet was engraved 
in the 1 8th year of the reign of his father, on the 
6th day of the month Mesore, the last month of the 
year. It is in two compartments. In the first of 
them Aphophis wears the crown of Lower Egypt, 
and is represented in the act of rushing hastily 
towards the south, bearing in his right hand the 
flagellum, and holding forth with his left a roll of 
papyrus, whereon was written his claim to the 
sovereignty of Upper Egypt. Some aggression on 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 199 

the part of the descendant of Amun-Timseus had 
therefore been the occasion of the war. In the next 
compartment he has assumed the crown of Upper 
Egypt, and is grasping with his left hand the hair 
of his vanquished enemy, while the right hand is 
raised in the act of striking him with a battle-axe. 
The enemy is an Egyptian in countenance, wearing 
the long hair which distinguished afterwards the 
Upper from the Lower Egyptians. His weakness 
and cowardice are most significantly symbolised. 
The figure is androgynous. It has the beard of a 
man and the breast of a woman. This defeat is said 
in the accompanying hieroglyphics to have taken 
place in the mountains of Western Thebes. One of 
the results of the victory was doubtless the cession 
to the Shepherds of the valuable copper-mines of 
Wady Meghara, which we find from other tablets 
also sculptured on its cliffs to have been in the 
possession of the kings of the 12th dynasty up to 
Amun-Timseus. In the hieroglyphic genealogy of 
the kings of Egypt in the chamber of Karnak, 
Aphophis is declared to be king of Lower Egypt at 
the time that Sebachon the successor of Amun- 
Timasus was king in Upper Egypt. Twenty-four 
officers of the army of Aphophis have had their 
names inscribed at the foot of this tablet. The 
force they commanded had doubtless come to take 
possession of the mines. They were moreover com- 



200 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



missioned to bring from thence metal for bronze 
colossi of the victor and his associates in the 
monarchy. 



SIM 



i, K*jy ~w 





We give here a copy of this beautiful tablet, 
principally because, as may be observed, in the two 
figures of Aphophis, however rigid, and metallic, 
and unlifelike, the features are nevertheless the 
same. They may be taken, therefore to be portraits 
of the patron of Joseph ! 

The power of the kingdom of the Mencherian re- 
formers on the western bank of the Nile was rapidly 
declining throughout the entire reign of Aphophis : 
so much so that his successor penetrated Upper 
Egypt as far as Assuan on its extreme southern 
border, and inscribed himself on the rocks there as 
king of the Lower country and conqueror of the 
Upper. In the genealogy of Karnak also, to which 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 201 

we have just referred, he is written by his descen- 
dant, king of Lower Egypt, governing Upper Egypt 
by a viceroy, even as the Pharaohs of the 12th 
dynasty had governed Memphis. 

These favourable circumstances for the develop- 
ment of the foreign policy of Aphophis, (which was 
too liberal and enlightened for his generation), were 
largely taken advantage of by him for the en- 
couragement of the fine arts. He built for himself 
a magnificent palace on the eastern bank of the 
Nile, almost directly opposite to the labyrinth of 
Amun-Timseus and in obvious rivalry of it. The 
revenues of this palace-temple must have been 
immense. The offices attached to it formed the 
summit of the ambition of all the princes of his 
court. The tombs of these princes are the most 
beautiful in Egypt. The following design is from 
that of the Saris Shusen, mayor of the Aphophoeum, 

| or palace of Aphophis. 




This picture tells its own story. The great cattle 



202 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

of Shusen are in the waters of the yearly overflow. 
The bull which heads the herd perceives a crocodile 
approaching, and his alarm is pourtrayed with 
much truth to nature. One of the cattle-keepers 
however is there in his boat or launch of papyrus 
reeds, and spears the assailant. The intention of 
this beautiful design is twofold. It commends the 
vigilance of the herdsmen of Shushen. It also ex- 
presses contempt and abhorrence of the crocodile- 
god of the royal rival of Aphophis on the other 
bank of the river. 

There are many other tombs of extreme beauty, 
and all of the princes of Pharaoh Aphophis, in the 
same mountain, which is at Suade in Middle Egypt, 
over against the modern city of Nineveh. At other 
places also tombs of the courtiers of Aphophis have 
been found ; Shech Said, for example, about fifty 
miles to the southward, — Chenoboscion, which is 
still further south, and many intermediate points. 
They everywhere bear uniform testimony to the 
high perfection which art in Egypt attained in the 
days of Pharaoh Aphophis. 

The quarry-marks which the kings of Egypt were 
wont to inscribe upon the rocks and mountains, 
whence they hewed the materials for the construc- 
tion of their temples and palaces, now furnish very 
important and historical notices of the events of 
their reigns. The granites and porphyries of the 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 203 

mountains of the Gulf of Suez were in large demand 
for works of art and ornament during the reign of 
Pharaoh Aphophis. At the ancient quarry now 
called Hamamat on the desert road from Keneh on 
the Nile, to Kossayr on the Red Sea, the inscrip- 
tions inform us that a considerable force was sta- 
tioned there to superintend the workmen in the 
days of Aphophis and his co-regents. The officers 
of this force inscribe their names on the festival of 
opening the temple of Ptha or Phut at Memphis, 
for several successive years. It would seem to have 
been principally for the decoration of this temple 
and Memphis, that the quarry was wrought. The 
high reputation of Aphophis and his father, for the 
beautiful works of architecture and art with which 
Memphis was adorned by them, was very gracefully 
commemorated. The name of the pyramid in which 
they were both interred, was made in after ages the 
trivial or vulgar name of Memphis.* It stood in 
the immediate vicinity of the city, and took, like 
other royal pyramids,*}* one of the titles of the kings 
who built it. (MDi^JA "Kl Aphophis the 
fair constructor the pyramid/' or (SiMj "t A 
" [of] Meris^: the fair constructor the pyramid/' 



" the house, " or 



* The name of Memphis in religion was 
" Temple of Ptha. " 

+ History of Egypt, Vol. ii. 
J The name of the father of Aphophis. I found these names of the 
pyramids in a tomb at Chenohoscion. 



204 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

was its name at length. In common speech the 
king's name was omitted (as with all other pyra- 
mids) and it was called ^j^. " the pyramid of 
the fair constructors/' which also was made ever 
afterwards the name of the city. It was pronounced 
man-nufi. The Coptic transcription preserves it 
unchanged. The Greeks changed it slightly 

for the sake of euphony, to Me^*c- The Hebrews 
about the time of the captivity in Babylon abbre- 
viated it to P\h Noph, and rp Moph. (Jer. ii. 14 ; 
Hos. ix. 6, &c.) The name Memphis, then, was to 
all who read hieroglyphics in Ancient Egypt during 
the whole period that they remained legible, the 
commemoration of the fair constructions wherewith 
the patron of Joseph had adorned the glorious city 
that bore it. Several other interesting facts of 
history also appear in these quarry marks at 
Hamamat. 

On the death of Salatis, Meris (whose name was 
long afterwards punned, or rhymed, or gingled into 
Benis or Benois, " a dirty fellow," by the Alexan- 
drians*) divided the monarchy with his son ; and 
on the first day of the great festival of Ptha at 
Memphis, Meris was crowned king of Upper Egypt, 
and Aphophis, or Apappus, of Lower Egypt. The 
coronation took place in the temple of Ptha, and 

* The names of the Shepherd-kings in the Greek lists are a piece of 
wit, for which the Alexandrians were always famous. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 205 

both assumed the dress and attributes of that god, 
thereby declaring themselves his votaries. This 
event was commemorated by a shrine of porphyry 
hewn from the quarry of Hamamat. 

Another tablet in the same quarry tells us in 
further illustration of the history of Egypt in the 
days of Joseph, that Meris the father of his patron, 
took Coptos on the western bank near Thebes, from 
the Mencherians, and made it the capital of Upper 
Egypt. About a hundred years earlier, Coptos was 
the capital of the Mencherian king Sesortosis I, of 
the 12th dynasty. This fact is stated in the tomb 
of Amenemes, one of his sons at Benihassan. 

Thus clearly does it appear, that all Egypt was 
under the government to which Joseph was minister, 
and that his institutions applied to the entire mo- 
narchy ! 

The 18th of Meris is a year commemorated in 
the annals of the quarries of Hamamat as well as 
in those of the mines of Meghara. On the 27th 
day of Ephip, that is nine days before his arrival at 
Meghara, the son of Meris passed through Hama- 
mat, doubtless on his way thither, and ordered the 
garrison there to commence very extensive opera- 
tions connected with the decoration of the temple 
of Ptha at Memphis. 

The fact so important to the Mosaic history, that 
Aphophis the patron of Joseph ruled overall Egypt, 



206 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

is confirmed still more triumphantly by the quarry 
marks in the red sandstone of Eilethya (called by 
the Arabs El Kab) which is situated in Upper 
Egypt, about twenty miles to the south of Thebes, 
and within thirty miles of Assonan, the extreme 
limit of all that ever was Egypt. Building stones 
and blocks for colossal statues were repeatedly cut 
from thence ; both in the life-time of Meris, and after- 
wards his son Aphophis cut blocks from thence for 
colossal sitting figures of his entire ancestry. There 
cannot be a doubt, therefore, that on the death of 
his father, Aphophis, or Phiops, or Apappus, (for by 
these latter names alone he was really known in the 
annals of Egypt) was sole king both of Upper and 
Lower Egypt, from its extreme southern limit to the 
Mediterranean on the north. 

These very clear monumental indications of the 
highly flourishing condition of Egypt under the 
Pharaoh to whom Joseph was minister, receive a 
confirmation from the Greek traditions, the force 
of which appears never yet to have been perceived. 
The Alexandrian chronologers are perfectly unani- 
mous in ascribing to the shepherd-kings all the 
reforms in the Egyptian calendar, whereby the vague 
year of 360 days was restored to harmony with the 
actual seasons. Salatis, or Saites, the grandfather 
of Apappus, is said to have added to the year the 
five days of the epoch.* Asses, his descendant, im- 

* Syncelli Chronol. p. 103, D. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 20 7 

proved upon this expedient, by making the addition 
to consist of half a day or twelve hours to each 
month.* No Greek authority ascribes this reform 
to any other line of monarchs in Egypt but the 
shepherd-kings. Thus clearly does the Greek tra- 
dition convict of absurdity its own fable regarding 
the barbarism of the shepherds. For it will be ob- 
served, that the reform is begun by Saites, the first 
of the shepherd-kings, and perfected to a degree 
upon which we in the present day, have scarcely 
been able to advance by the last of them. This cir- 
cumstance denotes a progressive civilization of a 
character very foreign to any thing that appears in 
the manners of ancient Egypt in later times, where 
all was as stationary as in China or Japan. The 
same tendency shews itself also in the foreign policy 
of this illustrious line of kings, upon which we have 
already remarked, and which procured for them the 
opprobrious epithet of shepherds in the annals of 
the priesthood of after-ages. 

Egypt was then a great, a prosperous, and a flou- 
rishing kingdom, when Joseph was minister to Pha- 
raoh. So says the Bible : and the truth of its state- 
ment is abundantly confirmed, both by the Greek 
tradition, and by the cotemporary monuments that 
still exist in Egypt. 

We have at length brought up to one point the 

* Seol. in Plat. Tim. Bekker, i. 424. 



208 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

histories of Egypt and Israel. Whether Joseph sur- 
vived A pappus, his master, and was minister to his 
son and successor, or died during the long reign of 
the former, the Greek lists afford us no means of 
determining. They are a mere mass of confusion. 
The Egyptian kings before us figure in them in dou- 
ble and triple entry. In the history of Egypt to 
which it belongs, we have given the full discussion 
of this question. The result of that discussion is 
all that belongs to this place. |fp| 

The son of Apappus was named |*gj rnrnra, which 
the Greeks would probably have hellenized into 
Melaneris. He does not however appear in their 
lists at all. The fame of Melaneris is purely monu- 
mental. Whoever was his minister, he was a great 
and prosperous monarch. In his reign the depres- 
sion of the Mencherian faction reached its lowest 
point. They were expelled from all Egypt. No 
dated monuments of the reign of Melaneris have 
been discovered. We can therefore know nothing 
of the length of it. 

On the death of Melaneris a war of succession 
most probably took place. It is certain that after- 
wards, Upper and Lower Egypt had each its dynasty 
of shepherd-kings, and that the kingdom of Apap- 
pus was never re-constructed. 

The king who succeeded Melaneris at Memphis 
and Heliopolis was named Jannes by the Alexan- 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 209 



drians, which was a pun upon his real name (pFP^ 
Unas. A single quarry mark at Hamamat records 
his name ; and the tomb of one of his princes exists 
at Sakkara, which was the cemetery of Memphis. 

The same obscurity besets the monumental record 
of the author of this line of kings. His name is 

scarcely found, except on quarry-marks {g \\\ \ 
Othoes. Not impossibly he was one of the obscure 
predecessors of Saites. 
The last of them was Asses (^~^$ whose monu- 



mental fame is equally slight, and in whose reign 
Memphis was lost to the shepherd kingdom. As we 
have the ample record of this event, both in the 
Greek traditions and in hieroglyphics, our narrative 
will now return to something more like history. 

The Greek tradition of this event is a quotation 
from the Egyptian history written in that language, 
at the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the 
third century before Christ, by a priest of the tem- 
ple of the city of Sebenne in the Delta named Ma- 
netho. So very turbid and perplexed is the language 
of this quotation, that it throws considerable doubt 
upon the fluency and accuracy of Manetho's Greek, 
whatever may have been his proficiency in decipher- 
ing his native hieroglyphics. With the unravelling 
of the knots and intricacies of this his narrative, 
which has been effected with much labour by the 

p 



210 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

comparison of it with the testimony of the monu- 
ments, we have nothing to do here.* The result, 
which is all that belongs to our present undertak- 
ing, is as follows : — "In the reign of Asses, a king 
of the Thebaid, [i.e., Upper Egypt] named Amosis, 
confederated with the kings of other parts of Egypt, 
and expelled the shepherds from Memphis. After 
this defeat they retired from the rest of Egypt, to a 
district about 10,000 arourse [that is 300 miles] in 
circumference, which they fortified with a wall very 
great and strong. In this enclosure they kept all 
their goods and plunder. Thothmosis, the son of 
Amosis, besieged them in this their strong hold with 
480,000 men ;— but at length he gave up the siege, 
and made a treaty with the besieged, wherein it was 
stipulated that the shepherds should leave Egypt 
unmolested, with all their property, and go where 
they would. They did so depart from Egypt, and 
to the number of not less than 2,400,000. They 
went into the desert, taking the road that leads to 
Syria." f 

This our version of Manetho does a good deal to 
clear his narrative of some of its grosser intricacies 
and inconsequences. Nevertheless we must acknow- 

* See History of Egypt, Vol. ii. p. 
+ Josephus Cont. Apion. i. 14. A floating number of 511 years for 
the Shepherd rule in Egypt, also occurs in this narrative ; but the two 
events at each extremity of it do not appear. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 211 

ledge that it egregiously fails to commend itself to 
the understanding, as sober, credible history. The 
following appear to be the certainties which it em- 
bodies. 

I. Memphis was lost to the shepherd-kingdom 
in the reign of Asses. 

II. The king who dispossessed him of it was 
named Amosis. In the lists he appears as the first 
king of the 18th dynasty. 

III. Amosis was confederate with other kings of 
Upper Egypt, when he made this successful attack 
upon Memphis. 

IV. After the loss of Memphis, the shepherds 
retired to a district 300 miles in circuit. Three 
hundred miles being just about the circumference 
of the district traversed by the mouths of the Xile, 
which the Greeks called the Delta, we conclude that 
it was into the Delta that the shepherds retreated. 

V. The great and very strong wall is now intelli- 
gible. The defeated king fortified Heliopolis his 
capital, at the crown or head of the Delta. He like- 
wise built forts to defend the river and its approaches 
at the point where it first branches into mouths, 
now called the Barash. The mode in which this 
history is narrated is very instructive as to the spirit 
in which it was written. 

This is the whole of the history which it seems 
possible safely to infer from Manetho's narrative. 

p 2 



212 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

without the further assistance of the monuments. 
To them, therefore, we now return. 

The hieroglyphic name of Amosis repeatedly occurs 
both on cotemporary monuments and in the genea- 
logies of his royal descendants. He wrote his name 



m two rings 



m 



which shows him to have been 



an adherent of the Mencherian faction. He is also 
placed in the genealogies as the immediate descend- 
ant of Amun-timceus, who was expelled from Mem- 
phis by Saites.* These facts might have been in- 
ferred from the narrative of Manetho. 

Amosis certainly had possession of Memphis ; for 
in the twenty-second year of his reign he made 
additions to the temple of Ptha in that city, and in 
the same year he built a temple in it to his god 
Amoun. These facts are recorded by the quarry 
marks on the rock of Toorah, which is immediately 
over against the ruins of Memphis. The formal 
hieroglyphic statement of the capture of Memphis, 
we shall presently have to consider. 

The loose uncertainty of Manetho's narrative is 
still more strikingly illustrated by the monumental 
identification of Thothmosis whom he calls the son 
of Amosis. Thothmosis was the descendant of 
Amosis, but there were at least six removes and 
more than a century of time between them. It is 

* Tablet of Abydos, &c. 



EGYPT BUR1XG THE SOJOURN. 213 

from the monuments constructed by this Thothmosis 
that we shall be able to continue the history of the 
shepherds in Upper Egypt, from the times of Mela- 
neris where we left it ; and also that of the Men- 
cherian kings, up to the period of the capture of 
Memphis, so as to trace this event to its probable 
cause. 

The expulsion from Egypt of the shepherds by 



Thothmosis 



has no other monumental foun- 



dation, than that Heliopolis was ceded to him by 
treaty with the Pharaoh then at the head of the 
shepherd kingdom, and that he colonized the extreme 
north-western angle of the Delta, founding there 
the city now called Alexandria. Thothmosis was at 
peace with the shepherds, and traded largely with 
them during the whole of his reign. The represen- 
tatives of the kingdom of Apappus seem on the 
cession of Heliopolis to have made their capital 
Xois in the centre of the Delta. In the Greek lists 
they are the seventy-six Xoite kings who reigned 
for 184 years. They were the contemporaries of the 
18th and 19th dynasties of the same lists. The 
only name with which the monuments have made 
us certainly acquainted is that of the last of them, 
who ceded the miserable remnant of the dominions 
of Apappus, to the king that knew not Joseph, and 
became the husband of his daughter. This transac- 
tion we shall find to have taken place at Heliopolis. 



214 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

The emigration therefore in Manetho's history of 
2,400,000 shepherds is a mere blundering anticipa- 
tion of the events of the Exodus. 

The causes of the decline of the kingdom of Apap- 
pus, we must now endeavour to trace on the mon- 
uments of Thothmosis. 

This monarch was most probably the son by 
incest * of Queen Amenses and her father Mesphres 
his predecessor. They were all three magnificent 
monarchs. Their constructions, especially at Thebes, 
which Amosis their ancestor had made his capital, 
were of great beauty. They founded the palace of 
Karnak in the portion of that city on the eastern 
bank of the Nile. Amongst other remains in this 
palace was a side chamber, or cloister, in which is 
represented the worship of sixty-one of the royal 
and vice-regal ancestors of Thothmosis. This most 
important monument yet exists at Paris in a muti- 
lated state. It has hitherto contributed but little 
to the illustration of Egyptian history. The study 
however of the monuments locally in other parts of 
Egypt has thrown considerable light upon it. An 
examination of all the royal names that are legible 
in this monument we have given elsewhere. The 
result stands thus : — 

* The Egyptians certainly never had the sense of the enormity of these 
offences, which prevailed so universally among the Semitic and Japhetian 
races in the ancient world. The extinction of the aboriginal Mizraites, 
in the days of the Ptolemies, had probably resulted from this cause prin- 
cipally. History of Egypt, Vol. i. ch. i. p. 14. 



31 kin.es face left. 




30 kings face right. 



216 ISRAEL W EGYPT. 

It will be observed that the thrones of the kings 
are arranged on the walls of the chamber in four 
rows. 

In the two upper rows are 32 kings. 

In the two lower rows are 29 kings. 

61 

The names of the kings in the two upper rows 
are all those of kings in Lower Egypt, writing their 
names in one ring only. 

The names of the kings in the two lower rows 
are all those of kings in Upper Egypt, who wrote 
their names in two rings. 

At the extremities of the two side-walls next the 
door of the entrance to the chamber, are the remains 
of pictures of Thothmosis doing sacrifice to the two 
lower rows of kings ; — that is of kings in Upper 
Egypt. We know him to have been a lineal descend- 
ant of Amosis, and accordingly Amosis appears at the 
head in the lowest row to the right of the entrance. 
The name is mutilated, save the first character, and 
a portion of the second. 

The pictures of the worshipper of the two upper 
rows of kings have entirely perished. It cannot have 
been Thothmosis, as has been conjectured.* In 

* Or if it was Thothmosis, as he worships the kings of Upper Egypt 
under his name in Lower Egypt, so he worshipped the Lower Egyptians 
under his name in the Upper country. We have so restored him in our 
diagram. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 217 

this case his figure would have occupied the space 
of all the four rows : as appears in innumerable 
examples of Egyptian art, the rules of which ad- 
mitted of no variation. We believe that the wor- 
shipper of these kings in Lower Egypt was his 
queen, and that the monument commemorated an 
act of pacification between the two factions that 
had so long divided Egypt. Thothmosis seems to 
have married the daughter of the king of Heliopo- 
lis, perhaps the heiress to the throne. Probably 
enough, it was in her right that this capital was 
added to his dominions, and the war which in all 
the previous reigns had raged between the two fac- 
tions, ended in a permanent peace. The chamber 
of Karnak now becomes significant. In token of 
this pacification the king and queen worship each 
their respective royal ancestry in the same shrine. 
This act of worship would be an important conces- 
sion on the part of Thothmosis to the religion of his 
queen and her subjects ; inasmuch as king-worship 
had certainly been abolished by the Mencherian 
reforms. 

From this monument we now derive a very im- 
portant fact connected with the fall of Memphis 
and of the kingdom of Apappus. The kings of 
Upper Egypt, of the line of the Shepherds, confe- 
derated with the Mencherian reformers in Nubia ; 
for in this genealogy they appear as kings in Lower 



218 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Egypt, and contemporary with these their rivals in 
Upper Egypt. There had been peace and amity 
between the two factions for some successions when 
Amosis came to the throne. What more probable, 
then, than that he himself had set the example 
which his descendant Thothmosis appears to have 
imitated, by espousing the daughter of the Shep- 
herd-king of Upper Egypt, and thereby becoming 
the rightful heir to both pretensions. This circum- 
stance, in itself perfectly natural and usual, removes 
entirely the historical difficulty as to the causes of 
the fall of Memphis. The force of Upper Egypt and 
Nubia was confederated under Amosis. By com- 
mon consent they made Amun, the god of eastern 
Thebes, the patron of the war. The priesthood, 
doubtless, fanned the flame of enthusiasm, and they 
would rush to the assault of the strongholds of the 
polluters of the sacred soil of Egypt, the allies of 
impure foreigners, with all the ardor of a crusade. 

Thothmosis wrote in hieroglyphics the chronicle 
of this capture of Memphis by Amosis, on the exte- 
rior of a magnificent shrine of red granite, which 
formed part of the same palace of Karnak. Of this 
most valuable record nothing but a fragment re- 
mains. It consists of fifty-four lines of hierogly- 
phics, all greatly mutilated. We have already trans- 
lated the whole of them.* They embody the follow- 

* History of Egypt, Vol. ii. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 219 

ing historical facts : Amosis took Memphis when 
he was twenty-nine years old. Its name is written 
3E& " the land of Xoph." We have already seen 
that this was the habitual abbreviation of the name 
of Memphis with the Hebrews. It is spoken of in 
this inscription invariably as a Canaanite city. 
This is the case with all other cities of Egypt in the 
hands of foreigners, and in all hieroglyphic inscrip- 
tions. Their names are spelt according to the 
foreign pronunciation of them, and are written as 
those of strange cities. It is highly probable, more- 
over, that the liberal policy of the Aphophean Pha- 
raohs would be far in advance of the prepossessions 
of their own Egyptian subjects, and as well as of 
the rest of the inhabitants of Egypt, The conse- 
quence of this would be both large defections to 
the banner of Amosis, and also revolts within the 
territories of the Memphite king. These would 
again tend to drive him to more dependence upon 
the immigrants from Canaan, and also to alliances 
with the kings of their confederacy in Canaan 
itself; so that in every succeeding year, the war 
would more and more lose its civil, and acquire an 
international complexion. These considerations 
divest of all inconsistency with the facts already 
ascertained — the circumstance that in this chronicle 
the war of Amosis against Memphis is spoken of as 
a war with the Canaanite nations of Arvad and 



220 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Heth, and the hereditary and native Pharaoh of 
Lower Egypt as the king of Arvad. 

The war lasted for seven years certain : probably 
much longer. In the latter years of it Amosis 
seems to have abandoned all further attack upon 
the territory of the Memphite Pharaohs, and to 
have even confederated with them against the Ca- 
naanites and Assyrians, who were threatening Egypt 
with an invasion across the desert of Suez. 

Thus clearly does it appear from both the monu- 
mental and traditive records of the event, that the 
fall of Memphis exercised no adverse influence 
whatever upon the position of Israel in Egypt. The 
Delta entire still remained, by the declaration of 
both authorities, under the rule of the descendants 
of the patron of Joseph. 

In the year after the capture of Memphis, Amosis 
crossed the desert and took by storm the strong 
hold of Adasa, in the south of Canaan. Doubtless 
the strong defences with which, as Manetho records, 
the Shepherds fortified their northern border, would 
deter him from further aggressions upon their terri- 
tories. There was also another motive for this 
diversion of the war, at least equally powerful in 
ancient times. Enormous booty fell into the hands 
of the conqueror, on the capture of Memphis. But 
a still larger prey escaped the conquerors, and was 
carried across the desert by the Canaanite confede- 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 221 

rates of the Memphite king. It was in pursuit of 
this, that Amosis marched upon Adasa. It would 
appear, that upon the loss of Memphis the Apho- 
pean Pharaoh had purchased peace by the further 
cession of Hermopolis in Middle Egypt ; retiring, 
altogether to the Delta, as Manetho writes : for the 
wars of the six following years of the reign of 
Amosis are all foreign wars with Arvad, Heth, 
and Naharaim, the spoil whereof he embarks on 
the Nile at the cities of Tanis and Athribis in the 
eastern Delta : both cities being at the time in the 
hands of the Shepherds, as the mode of writing 
their names in hieroglyphics plainly indicates. 

The immediate successors of Amosis (the Theban 
Pharaohs, as we may now call them) seem to have 
principally occupied themselves with the prosecu- 
tion of the conquests begun by their ancestors over 
Cush to the southward. Mesphres, the father of 
Thothmosis, is the first of them who has recorded 
his name on any monument in the Delta. He 
founded the city of Alexandria on its north-west- 
ern point, but apparently as a colony, not as a 
conquest. 

The cession of Heliopolis to Thothmosis was the 
first event adverse to Israel, that had yet occurred 
in the history of Egypt. In his reign a gang of 
captive Israelites is represented making bricks in 
the tomb of Ris-share, the superintendent of his 



222 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

constructions at Thebes ; but in all probability 
they were Simeonites or Levites, and misdemean- 
ants against the laws of Egypt. The Delta still 
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Xoite kings, 
the descendants of Apappus. 

Events adverse to Egypt were never related to 
strangers by the Egyptian priesthood, whatever 
record of them may have existed in the temple 
muniments. It was only the wide circulation in 
Egypt in the days of the Ptolemaic kings [b. c. 304 
to b. c. 19] of the Jewish account of the Exodus, and 
its undeniable truth, that extorted from them the 
mutilated and falsified story of the Shepherd inva- 
sion, which we have just quoted. Great misfor- 
tunes befel the kingdom of the Theban Pharaohs in 
the days of the successors of Thothmosis ; but not 
a word or hint of them appears in the Greek tradi- 
tion. Their history is altogether monumental. 

Armais, the grandson and second successor of 
Thothmosis, experienced in the seventh year of his 
reign a disastrous defeat from the Phutim of the 
Sahara, in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
island of Philoe, close to the southern border of 
Egypt. Armais fled northward before his enemies, 
who pursued him, and entered Thebes his capital in 
triumph. There they were joined by a faction in 
Egypt, headed by the half-brother of Armais, a very 
dark mulatto, whom they placed on the throne, 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 223 

giving him to wife a Phutite princess. Headed by 
this pretender, they continued the pursuit of Armais, 
who fled to Memphis, where he seems to have pur- 
chased the assistance of the Apophean Pharaoh at 
Xois by the cession of Heliopolis, and by this aid to 
have been able to make some stand against his negro 
conquerors. He remained at Memphis and Alexan- 
dria long enough to inscribe his name on temples, 
the ruins of which exist to this day. At the former 
city he dedicated a temple to the Sphinx of Sephres, 
the builder of the second pyramid of Grhizeh. This 
huge colossus, Avhich is a hewn rock in its place, 
remains to this day. The Xoite or Aphophean 
Pharaohs whose alliance he was then seeking, were 
especially devoted to the worship of Sephres, and 
named themselves after this ancient king. The Greek 
lists say that the brother of Armais finally expelled 
him from all Egypt. 

The consequence of these events to Upper Egypt 
was a disputed succession to the throne of Thebes. 
For several descents, a line of Negro kings, on the 
eastern bank of the Mle, contended for the sove- 
reignty of Egypt with the sons of Amosis on the 
western bank. The war was of course a religious 
war : for such was the nature of all civil wars in 
Egypt at all periods of her history. It seems to have 
been the attempt to identify Amun with the sun 
(of which Nesteres of the lltVdy nasty had been the 



224 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

author) that was the cause of the discontent in 
Egypt, in which the success of the Negroes origin- 
ated. The new sectaries worshipped the disc of the 
sun only, renouncing most scrupulously all other 
idols. They however erased the names and pictures 
of Amun alone from the temples.* Amenophis 
Memnon, the son and successor of Armais, ended 
this schism at Thebes in the usual way. He mar- 
ried the Negro princess at the head of the other 
pretension. In Middle Egypt, nevertheless, these 
black sectaries continued for two or three descents 
longer to claim the sovereignty of Egypt. 

These disasters to the rival throne would leave 
the southern frontier of the Xoite Pharaohs un- 
molested, and enable them once more to develope 
the policy of the great Apappus.f To this course 
they would, moreover, now be driven by another 
cause. The children of Israel had now greatly in- 
creased both in numbers, wealth, and influence in 
their kingdom. They had not adopted the language 
of Egypt, though they seem to have conformed gen- 



* History of Egypt, Vol. ii. 
"h The remains of a temple of the Negro disc-worshippers is said to 
exist at Tanis, on the north-east of the Delta. The style of their con- 
structions, which is extremely beautiful, yielding in artistic merit to the 
works of no other race or time in Egypt, is, nevertheless, so peculiar, that 
they are readily distinguished. Trans. R. S. L. Vol. i. pp. 76—92, 140— 
148. This is a further illustration of the tolerant policy of the Shepherd- 
Pharaohs. 



EGYPT DURING THE S0J0URK. 225 

erally to its customs and institutions. Their sym- 
pathies would therefore naturally flow out towards 
the people across the desert, inhabiting the country 
to which they were one day to return, and speaking 
the same language with themselves : and in the 
councils of Pharaoh the voices of the princes of 
Israel would be in favour of alliances with the kings 
of Canaan ; so that the general policy of the govern- 
ment of the Delta would be to encourage the settle- 
ment of the Canaanites in the cities and pasturages 
on its eastern border. 

The same state of things continued during the 
reigns of the two remaining Theban Pharaohs, which 
brought the dynasty (the 18th of the lists) of which 
Amosis was the founder to its termination. Through- 
out them the Pharaohs of Thebes and the Delta were 
at peace. 

The 18th dynasty consisted of ten successive 
monarchs, reigning at Thebes for about 200 years. 



The short reign of Rameses ™T|M\P 



the founder 



of the following Theban dynasty seems to have been 
occupied with the expulsion of the Negro disc-wor- 
shippers from the eastern bank of the Nile. This 
was probably the benefit conferred on Egypt, which 
procured for him from the priesthood the honour of 
being placed at the head of a new dynasty, though 
in fact he was the son of his predecessor. 

Q 



226 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



Sethos 



the son and successor of Rameses, 



was, like his father, a fierce fanatic against the 
Negro disc-worshippers. He built the propyla of 
his palace-temple, at Karnak in Eastern Thebes, 
with the stones of one of their temples which had 
stood in the vicinity, and which he razed to the 
ground.* In the first year of his reign he boasts of 
a great and successful war against the Shepherds of 
Canaan, five actions of which he had recorded on 
the north external wall of the same palace-temple. 
The minute analysis of this vast picture we have 
given elsewhere. -f- The epitome of the history it 
embodies is all that belongs to this place. 

The dominions of the Xoite Pharaoh are named 
here the land of Arvad, as on the granite shrine 
of Thothmosis : but the epithet Upper or South- 
er 31 (SfX r t n 'h r > th e Upper Arvadites") is added 
to distinguish Arvad in Egypt, from Arvad in Ca- 
naan, which Sethos also visited, and which is named 
S=d aJL " ^ e l° wer (northern) Arvadites." 

As we have already stated, the bulk of the Ca- 
naanite settlers in the Delta were of the tribes of 
Arvad and Heth. No admixture, however, took 
place between the two tribes, even after they had 
embraced the religion of their new country, and 

* Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit., U.S. 
f History of Egypt, Vol. ii. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 227 

■were located in the cities of Middle Egypt and the 
Delta. They still remained Arvadites and Hittites. 
They dwelt in separate cities, and the national dis- 
tinctions were as strictly kept up in Egypt as in 
Canaan. This was the universal custom in ancient 
times. It prevails to a considerable extent among 
the inhabitants of the East to the present day. In 
our western parts of the world, it is peculiar to one 
tribe only — the Jews. A very natural consequence 
of this distinction had evidently befallen Arvad 
and Heth in Egypt, during the interval between the 
reigns of Amosis and Sethos. There had been a 
war between them. Heth had been worsted and 
expelled from Egypt, The Xoite kings had taken 
the part of Arvad. The Hittites crossed the desert, 
and the story of their wrongs roused the vindictive 
passions of their brethren in Canaan. They confe- 
derated with other tribes, made war upon Arvad. 
and invaded his territory in Canaan, and those also 
of his ally the Xoite king of Egypt, under whom 
Arvad held possessions in suzereignty. In this 
emergency the king of Xois sought the aid of 
the Theban Pharaoh, Sethos I. These were the 
causes of the war, the results of which are em- 
bodied in the vast picture which surrounds the side 
portal in the north external wall of the palace of 
Karnak. 

The belligerents in this war were Sethos I. of 

Q2 



228 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Thebes, confederate with the Xoite king (or Upper 
Arvad, as his co-regent in Upper Egypt, who ft bears 
no rival next the throne/' names him by a haughty 
and insolent taunt), also with Lower Arvad (that is 
Arvad in Canaan) and Naharaim or Mesopotamia. 
On the other side Heth, with whose pretensions to 
possessions in Egypt the war had originated, was 
in league with the Amorites, the Zuziin of Kanah, 
Moab and Ammon, and the Jebusites, and had 
invaded the territories of the Xoite Pharaoh. The 
Zuzim and Moab were also claimants of strong-holds 
in Egypt as well as Heth. This was (as we have 
seen) the motive of the war, which, according to the 
picture of it, was wonderfully successful. After 
repelling the invaders from Egypt, Sethos pursues 
them into Canaan, dislodges them from Adasa in 
the mountains of Judea, routs them in battle after 
battle, and overruns the entire land as far as the 
foot of Hermon, which being then the name of the 
whole southern face of the mountain-ranges both of 
Libanus and Anti-Libanus, means of course that he 
marched through all Canaan or Phenicia. He then 
vindicates the claims of Arvad in Canaan, i. e. 
Lower Arvad, to the right of felling timber in the 
forests of Hermon for the supply of Egypt, where 
no timber grows. Having accomplished this, he 
receives an embassy of congratulation, with rich 
presents, from Tyre, the chief city of Arvad in Ca- 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 229 

naan ; then defeats the Zuzim, sacking Canaan or 
Kanah their chief city, and returns to Egypt on the 
eastern bank of Jordan, through the territories of 
the Jebusite and of Moab. 

If the averments of this pictorial rhodomontade 
are to be literally received, the Xoite king purchased 
the aid of his Theban brother at a very costly price. 
Six cities or strongholds in the Delta were ceded by 
him to Sethos. The names of four of them are still 
legible : the other two have suffered mutilation. 
The legible names consist of Tanis, Bubastis, and 
Heliopolis, on the eastern border of the Delta, and 
Sais on its western boundary. Five stations in the 
desert of Suez are also included in the concessions 
of the Xoite king to Sethos. Of their three unmu- 
tilated names, one only (namely, Kadesh-Barnea in 
the Wilderness) is mentioned in the Bible. 

This ancient war, the cotemporaneous record of 
which remains extant to this day, is important to 
the history of Israel in Egypt. The contingent of 
Israel to the army of the Xoite king would be very 
considerable ; and when the war was carried into 
Canaan, doubtless they formed part of the invading 
force. This circumstance exactly harmonizes with 
the single fact which alone stands recorded in the 
inspired narrative, during this long interval which 
we are now endeavouring to fill up from the monu- 
ments of Ancient Egypt. It is the defeat of the 



230 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Ephraimites by the Philistines of Grath, which is 
mentioned in the pedigree of Joshua. 1 Chron. 
vii. 20, 21. The clear inference from hence, that 
in this interval there were frequent wars with Ca- 
naan, is thus established by the monuments of 
Egypt. 

Sethos I. reigned at Thebes for fifty-five years. 
There is no record of any war of his on the northern 
frontier of his kingdom afterwards. The beautiful 
obelisk now standing in the Piazza del Popolo at 
Rome informs us, in the hieroglyphic inscription 
engraven upon it, that it was erected by Sethos be- 
fore the temple of Re-Athom at Heliopolis. Thus 
is the cession of this capital to Sethos, which is re- 
corded at Thebes, confirmed by its own monuments. 
This, in common with the tomb of Sethos and all 
other monuments of his reign, which are very nu- 
merous, tell us unmistakeably that it was long, 
peaceful, and prosperous. 

The son and successor of Sethos was for five years 
co-regent with his father. He is named in the 
stories related to the Greeks by the Egyptian priest- 
hood, Sesostris. In the lists and on the monuments 
his name is Ramses. In the fifth year of his acces- 
sion, (the first of his sole reign) there was again a 
war on the north-eastern frontier of Egypt. As we 
have three picture-records of this war on three of 
the greatest temples now remaining in Egypt, the 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 231 

details of it are very amply chronicled. The motive 
of it was .precisely the same as that of the former 
war. The pretensions of the Hittites and of Moab 
to possessions in Egypt had been revived. They 
confederated with other tribes of Canaan, and the 
dominions of the Xoite king in the Delta again 
suffered an invasion. He applied once more for aid 
to his haughty brother at Thebes. An alliance was 
formed between them, and the repulse of the in- 
vaders by their combined armies is the subject 
commemorated in these boastful pictures. Notwith- 
standing the amplitude of the space occupied by its 
details on the walls of the temples, the war of 
Ramses with Canaan was a very inferior affair, both 
in its prosecution and its results to Egypt, to that 
of Sethos his father. 

The very intricate details of this war we have 
given elsewhere. They are neither important to 
the history of Israel, nor to any other history, be- 
cause they are not true — save in one or two circum- 
stances. The war issued in the cession of Hadasha 
and Phenne, or Punon in the peninsula of Sinai, to 
the Canaanites, whereby probably the claims ot 
Heth to possessions in Egypt were compromised. 
In the war of Sethos, Hadasha had remained with 
the Xoite dynasty, and Phenne with the Theban at 
its termination. Both crowns therefore contributed 
to the concession by which the peace was purchased. 



232 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Throughout the pictures of this war, the Xoite 
Pharaoh is invariably spoken of as Upper Arvad 
in the explanatory text that accompanies them, and 
his soldiers are represented as fighting in the ranks of 
Egypt, but with the helmet, arms, and costume of 
Tyre or Arvad, though in the cast of their counte- 
nances and their complexions they are decided 
Egyptians. The fact we have now ascertained, that 
the Upper Arvad of the hieroglyphics is a taunt- 
ing epithet for the kingdom of the Xoites in the 
Delta, satisfactorily explains all these circumstances. 
The copy from Ipsambul in Nubia, 
of the picture of one of these sol- 
diers, will, we trust, not be without 
interest, now that it is understood 
that they represent the armies of 
the kings in whose dominions Israel 
sojourned in Egypt ; and under whose 
banners the fighting men of Israel 
marched. 

There is a tablet of Ramses, in which he is repre- 
sented smiting his enemies, on a rock on the nor- 
thern bank of the Nahr el Kelb, the ancient river 
Lycus, which was the boundary of Arvad in Canaan 
to the northward. This, however, must have been 
executed by his allies the Arvadites of Canaan, and 
at his command, for it does not appear from the 
hieroglyphics that he ever penetrated beyond Ha- 




EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 233 

dasha in the mountains of the Dead Sea, which is 
separated from the valley of the Lycus by the whole 
extent of the land. 

How little this war, of which the hieroglyphics 
boast so loudly, really availed for the pacification 
of Egypt, appears abundantly in the sequel. Only 
four years afterwards, the Xoite kingdom was again 
invaded, and by the very Canaanite nation whose 
utter discomfiture is paraded in the temple-picture, 
namely, Sheth, or Moab and Amnion. The prin- 
cipal cities in the Delta were in the hands of Moab 
when Ramses arrived there. This is the evident 
tenor of the narrative of the war which still exists.* 
Israel, now very powerful in the Delta, would cer- 
tainly take no part in a war against their kindred, 
the descendants of Lot : — a circumstance which 
amply accounts for the success of the invasion. 
Ramses came as a pacificator. One of the terms 
of it was, all but certainly, the marriage of the heir 
to the Xoite throne with a princess of Moab. This 
sufficiently appears in the hieroglyphic record of 
the next transaction, in which the Xoite king is no 
longer entitled King of Upper Arvad, but Prince of 
Moab. 

This transaction is a memorable one in the 
annals, both of Israel and Egypt. It took place 
in the twenty-first year of the reign of Ramses. 

* It is a Papyrus in the British Museum. The Salier Papyrus. 



234 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

The record of it is a long hieroglyphic inscription 
on the south external wall of Karnak, in East- 
ern Thebes. The mode of inscribing this event 
differs entirely from that of those we have hitherto 
examined. The history of a war was a picture. It 
was to commemorate civil and peaceable communi- 
cations with foreigners, that the present mode was 
applied. This explanation is required by the style 
of this singular inscription, which is as grandilo- 
quent against the foreigners, and breathes blood- 
shed and slaughter as furiously as any battle-piece 
in Egypt. It was, nevertheless, a treaty of pacifi- 
cation and alliance, offensive and defensive, between 
Ramses and the kings of A r Moab 5jfr^p;JL, and 
Aroernv^V J% ^=§ ^X, , probably at this period the 
capital cities of the two members of the warlike 
confederacy of Moab and Ammon. Its name in 
Egypt was that of its country: ®^Q ^ shtin, "the 
mountains of Sheth or Siddim." * 

The interview between the contracting parties 
took place at Heliopolis, The terms of the treaty 
are hinted at in this obscurely-worded document, 
which is also greatly mutilated. They are confirmed 
by other coeval monuments. They stand thus : 

Egypt conceded to Moab all claim upon any pos- 

* In Appendix A will be found a synopsis of the principal Canaanite 
names, written in hieroglyphics, with their identification. Israel had at 
this time no national name. 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 235 

session to the eastward of the Phathmetic branch 
of the Nile. Moab in return conceded to Egypt her 
pretension to all cities and lands to the westward 
of this boundary. The names of four of these ceded 
cities are yet legible. They are Sais in the western 
Delta, Xois in the central Delta, and Phelbis and 
Sebennytus in the eastern portion of the same divi- 
sion of Egypt. The gods of both parties sanction 
the treaty. Athom-ra [i. e. Adam the sun] the god 
of Heliopolis, appears for Ramses. Ashtoreth, the 
goddess of Moab, and Astar, the god of Heth, meet 
him on the other part. An annual interchange of 
presents between the two powers was also stipu- 
lated in token of perpetual amity. 

The ratification of this treaty has perished from 
the inscription, but it appears upon other monu- 
ments. It is that of which we have had so many 
former examples, and which seems to have been 
universal in ancient Egypt. The king of Ar Moab, 
who was the Xoite Pharaoh, Si-Phtha, married 
Thouoris, the daughter of Ramses, and consented to 
govern in the Delta, his present dominions, as vice- 



roy, 



on the condition, that on the death of his 



father-in-law he should succeed him as Pharaoh in 
all Egypt. 

The acceptance of these terms evidently implies 
that the Xoite kingdom was greatly depressed in 



236 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the days of Si Phtha. In the absence of direct 
history, we may be sure that the occasion of it 
would be the close union and sympathy between 
Israel and Moab, which had reduced the power of 
the Xoite Pharaoh to a mere shadow, so that he 
sought the aid of Ramses to save his throne from 
destruction and the Delta from being made a pro- 
vince of the Moabites. The date of this treaty is 
therefore beyond doubt that also of the rise of the 
new king that knew not Joseph ; inasmuch as thereby 
the kingdom of Aphophis was finally merged in 
that of the Theban Pharaohs. 

The back-reckoning which synchronises the his- 
tories of Egypt and Israel for the period we have 
considered, is all that now remains. 

In the 21st year of Ramses, he had reigned alone for 16 years. 

The reign of Sethos 55 „ 

Ramses 1 1 j - „ 

The ten kings of the 18th dynasty . . 205 „ 

277^ years. 

This was the interval that had elapsed from the 
capture of Memphis by Amosis, to the rise of the 
new king. If we add to this number the 90 years 
which we assume for the proximate interval be- 
tween this event and the Exodus, and deduct the 
sum from 430, the whole duration of the sojourn, 
it will give us the 64th year of the sojourn for the 
date of the fall of Memphis, which is 6 years only 



EGYPT DURING THE SOJOURN. 237 

before the death of Joseph. When we further con- 
sider that the durations of the reigns of these Pha- 
raohs are taken from the Greek lists, which are by 
no means certainties, frequently err, and always in 
excess, it follows that the death of Joseph and the 
fall of Memphis (the first great blow to the kingdom 
of his patron) are very nearly synchronous : which 
is exactly what the ancient history of the whole 
world would have led us to anticipate, where the 
personal character of the ruler had so much to do 
with the prosperous or adverse circumstances of 
his kingdom. 

Note — The single trait of the manners and customs of Israel in Egypt at 
this epoch, which the Bible has recorded, is their association with the pure 
worship of the patriarchal tradition, that of these idols of Egypt. This 
fact is hinted at in the book of Deuterononw xxix. 16, 17. It is stated 
distinctly in general terms by the prophet Ezekiel xx. 7, 8. The traces 
of this their false worship also appear in other passages. They worship- 
ped the steer or ox "^37 • Exod. xxxii. 4, &c. This would doubtless be 
the bull Mnevis, the sacred animal of On or Heliopolis. The goat like- 
wise was one of the gods of their idolatry *H>^H? Leviticus xvii. 7, in 
which we recognise the sacred animal of the Mendesian nome. 

That the worship of Israel should be thus assimilated with that of 
Egypt, was a natural consequence of their present circumstances. They 
were the prosperous and thriving subjects of a settled, well-ordered, and 
tranquil state. They therefore adopted in a measure its religion. 



238 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 

" And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all 
that generation. And the children of Israel were 
fruitful and multiplied, and waxed exceeding 
mighty ; and the land was filled with them/' 
Exod. i, 6. 

We once more bring the text upon which we are 
engaged before the reader's eye, in order that he 
may perceive how exactly and to the minutest par- 
ticular, all that we have found upon the monu- 
ments regarding the last days of the Xoite kingdom 
in the Delta corresponds with the terms of it. 
" Israel waxed exceeding mighty : " therefore first 
Heth is expelled from Egypt. Soon afterwards 
Arvad also loses his influence there. The circum- 
stances that both tribes had been among the first 
settlers in the Delta, had assisted Saites in the 



THE KING THAT KXEW NOT JOSEPH. 239 

taking of Memphis, and had also been among the 
first to make peace with the conqueror after its 
re-capture by Amosis, availed nothing. They were 
the hereditary enemies of Israel. They were of 
another race, and therefore they must depart to 
make room for the kindred of the reigning tribe, 
the children of Lot. This result of our inquiry 
furnishes, we submit, a proof neither wire-drawn 
nor weak, that we have interpreted aright, both the 
sacred text and the hieroglyphic inscriptions. 

(C And the land was filled with them." The en- 
tire extent of the kingdom in which Israel sojourned, 
is the obvious import of this phrase. "We shall find 
no difficulty in demonstrating that Israel was scat- 
tered over the whole Delta, and that this district 
u was filled with them." when we come to consider 
the events of the Exodus. 

;; Xow there arose up a new king over Egypt, 
which knew not Joseph. 

" And he said unto his people. Behold, the people 
of the children of Israel are more and mightier than 
we ! Come on. let us deal subtilly with them, lest 
they multiply ; and it come to pass, that when 
there falleth out any war. he also [Israel] be among 
those that hate us, and fight against us. and so get 
the ascendancy over the land.''' Ver. 8 — 10. 

Israel has now acquired great political influence 
in the Xoite kina'dom. We have alreadv detected 



240 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the clearly visible traces of it on the cotemporary 
monuments of Egypt. The present text would 
suggest the probability that it was the fear of the 
rapid increase of this influence, that had induced 
Si-phtha, or his council, to seek the alliance of the 
Theban Pharaoh, and to submit to the conditions 
of it. 

When Ramses had annexed the Delta to his own 
monarchy, he found the process going on there, of 
which the annals of modern colonization furnish 
us with so many parallel examples. One of the 
two races that inhabited it was extinguishing the 
other. The sons of Mizraim were rapidly disappear- 
ing before the Abrahamic immigrants that thronged 
the Delta. Ramses dealt with both the intruding 
races. Moab, as we have seen, left Egypt under 
treaty. With Israel his mode of dealing was sug- 
gested by the antipathy of races in himself and in 
his subjects ; a perfect hallucination of the mind, 
and one of all others the least under the control of 
reason, and the most difficult to assign to any ra- 
tional cause. Yet has it been a most powerful mo- 
tive at all periods of the history of man. Sparta 
and Messene is a familiar example of its prevalence 
in the days of old ; and, not to multiply modern in- 
stances, negro slavery in the present day. 

u Therefore they did set over them taskmasters 
to afflict them with their tasks. And they built for 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 24] 

Pharaoh magazines, [fortresses] even Pithom and 
Rameses." Ver. 11. 

This was the beginning of the captivity. The 
children of Israel have no more in Egypt the im- 
munities which had been granted them by Aphophis 
in consideration of the counsels and services of Jo- 
seph, and which placed them exactly on a level 
with the native Egyptians. The decree of the 21st 
of Rameses, deprives them of all these, and places 
them in the position of sojourners there, as strangers 
within or without the gates of the cities ; thereby 
rendering them liable to the forced services which 
were exacted of tribes so situated, according to the 
practice of the ancient world. The universality of 
this custom is so perfectly established by another 
place in the subsequent history of Israel, that we 
give the passage at length. 

" And Hiram the king of Tyre answered in writ- 
ing, which he sent to Solomon, * * * We will 
cut wood out of Lebanon, according to all thy need : 
and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to 
Joppa ; and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem. 

" And Solomon numbered all the strangers in the 
land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith David 
his father had numbered them ; and they were found 
153,600. 

" And he set 70,000 of them to be bearers of 
burdens, and 80,000 to be hewers in the mountains, 

R 



242 ISRAEL IH EGYPT. 

and 3600 overseers to set the people a work/' 
2 Chron. ii. 11, 16—18. 

It is surprising that the illustration of the bon- 
dage in Egypt afforded by this remarkable passage 
has not before been noticed. 

The names of the two strongholds built by the 
Israelites will now require our attention. 

Pithom, DHD. We have elsewhere expressed our 
conviction that this was the city originally built by 
Sethos the father of Rameses on the easternmost 
branch of the Nile, which was named after it the 
Phathmetic, i. e. Pithometic branch ; in the same 
way as all the other branches took the names of the 
principal cities on their banks. The hieroglyphic 
names of this city was J2RfT®± £k p-stmei, " the 
lock or seal of Egypt ; " written in the Coptic texts, 
it was tamiati, omitting the p at the beginning, 
which is the definite article. It retains the same 
name to this day, Damietta. It is several years 
since we published this our conviction : * our pre- 
sent inquiry entirely confirms it. The constructions 
of Israel at Damietta would doubtless consist of 
extensive fortifications, walls, and other military 
works. 

Ramses, ttftyn. It was the custom of the kings 
of Egypt, at all times and from the first, to call by 
their own names the districts or lands reclaimed 

* " Egypt, her testimony," &c. 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 243 

and added to the actual surface of Egypt Proper, by 
the engineering operations carried on during their 
reigns, either by themselves or their subjects. In 
the tombs of the earliest epochs, when the first co- 
lonization was yet in progress, the princes of Egypt 
paraded long lists of fields and plots of ground, all 
named after the reigning Pharaoh in the inventory 
of their properties.* Other plots of ground regis- 
tered in their tombs were named after more ancient 
kings. By this means the hieroglyphic names of 






, both of the second 



Cechous U and Reophis 

111 M 

dynasty, have been preserved. This consideration 
establishes the high probability, that the localities 
in Egypt called Ramses in the books of Moses, were 
so named after the monarch who had first added 
them to Egypt. Now we have found that the Delta 
had been accounted a strange land, and the cities 
acquired there recorded as foreign conquests, by the 
Theban Pharaohs, the predecessors of Ramses. So 
that the act of the 21st of Ramses, whereby the 
whole of it was annexed to and made a part of 
Egypt, was in effect analogous to the reclamation of 
a patch of the desert by means of channels from the 
Mle. It made an actual addition to the soil of 
Egypt, and therefore, by invariable prescription, 

* History of Egypt, Vol. i. 
R 2 



244 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the Pharaoh who had been the author of it, named 
the acquired district after himself. We have hap- 
pily further monumental evidence which reduces 
this probability to a certainty. In the act of Pha- 
raoh Ramses which adds the Delta to Egypt, he 
goes to Heliopolis, not under the name in his first 



Y ' m g> (B^ yHS^ which was his name in Lower 



Egypt (Sesostris), but under the name in his second 



ring, (4MMPP1 i- e * Meiamoun (the beloved of 



Amoun), Ramses, (he is named in the lists Ramses 
Meiamun), which was his name in Upper Egypt. A 
haughty taunt is doubtless implied in this. The 
newly-acquired district shall be called, not by his 
name in Lower Egypt (of which nevertheless it 
forms a part), but by his name in Upper Egypt, 
thereby asserting the superiority of Thebes his capi- 
tal over all the cities of Egypt, and of Amun his 
god over all the gods of Egypt. This was the reason 
why he named the Delta Ramses. The monumental 
evidence of the Delta itself is perfectly decisive of 
the question as to this identity. There is not a 
single mound or ruin in any part of the Delta, on 
which the name of Pharaoh Ramses has not been 
engraved, and in nearly the whole of them his is the 
only kings name that occurs at all. So clear is it 
that it was after him that the district wherein Is- 
rael sojourned was named Ramses. (See Gen. 
xlvii. 11.) 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 245 

In the place now before us Ramses is also the 
name of a city of Egypt built by the Israelites. This 
was the new capital which Ramses built for Si-Ptha, 
his son-in-law, and Thouoris his daughter, and 
named after himself. The site of it bears to this day, 
and always has borne, the name of Ramses. A few 
sculptured stones, with the name of the founder, 
once marked the spot : but they have been destroyed 
by the barbarism of Mohammed Ali. It is situated 
on the extreme western border of the Delta, and 
about midway between the crown thereof and the 
sea. So that with Pithom by the sea on the oppo- 
site border, and Heliopolis at the southern angle (see 
map), it was well placed for holding the entire Delta 
in military subjection. The building of fortified 
camps was that upon which Ramses employed the 
forced labour of the Israelites, when he first placed 
them in bondage. These completed, and manned 
with a strong military force, and Pharaoh was in 
position to throw off the mask with which the 
power of the Israelites in the Xoite kingdom had 
compelled him to cover his first steps against them. 

" And as they afflicted them, so they multiplied 
and grew, and they were grieved because of the chil- 
dren of Israel. 

" And the Egyptians made the children of Israel 
to serve with rigour. 

"And they made their lives bitter with hard 



246 ISRAEL IN' EGYPT. 

bondage, in mortar (asphalt), and in brick, and in 
all manner of service in the field. All the service 
wherewith they made them serve was with rigour/' 
Exodus i. 12—14. 

The children of Israel are now completely in the 
position of prisoners of war. They are made to 
work at the drudgery — the mere brute labour, both 
of the field and of the city, under task-masters from 
among themselves, appointed by the Egyptians, and 
beaten when their gangs fail in producing the re- 
quired amount of labour. In this consisted the 
bondage in Egypt, and with certain mitigations, it 
continued until the time of the Exodus. 

The reign of Pharaoh Ramses in Egypt was a 
very long one. According to the Greek lists, it 
lasted for sixty-eight years, and there is a tablet in 
the British Museum which is dated in his sixty-sixth 
year. As the decree to which we have so often al- 
luded was made in his twenty-first year, it will 
follow that he held the children of Israel in bondage 
for forty-seven years. 

The actual numbers of the children of Israel, at 
the time of this beginning of their captivity, are of 
course unknown. The expression " the land was 
filled with them/' implies, however, that they must 
have been very many. At the Exodus, when the 
census of the fighting men was taken, there were 
upwards of 600,000 men in Israel between the ages 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 247 

of twenty and sixty ; but assuredly in the captivity 
the Israelites would be compelled to begin to work 
long before the age of twenty, and to continue to 
labour long after that of sixty. If therefore we put 
down the number of prisoners of war or bond-slaves, 
which the policy of Ramses had placed at his dis- 
posal, at 500,000, we shall be sure to err considerably 
in defect. Yet is even this number incomparably 
out of proportion to any hieroglyphic record of cap- 
tives that exist on the monuments of Egypt. The 
whole amount of prisoners taken alive in the wars 
of Amosis for the recovery of Memphis, scarcely ex- 
ceeds 2400 (which is by far the greatest number 
extant). In the histories of other wars, the capture 
of 15, 10, or even 5 living prisoners, are deemed 
events worthy of commemoration on the walls of 
the temples they helped to build, so very generally 
did the combatants in ancient warfare prefer death 
on the battle-field to the horrors of captivity. 

The works upon which the Israelites were com- 
pelled to labour would be in great part of a monu- 
mental character, for this was the prevailing taste 
in ancient Egypt at all epochs. And mechanical 
science in these times, not extending beyond the 
inclined plane, and possibly the lever, the quantity 
of work produced entirely depended upon the num- 
ber of men whose forced services were at the com- 
mand of the constructor. The Israelites would be 



248 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

marched in gangs to the quarries, and employed 
both in the hewing of blocks of stone and granite, 
and in the transport of them across the desert to 
Egypt, like the Canaanites in the reign of Solomon. 
They •would also be employed in making bricks of 
Nile mud, wherewith to build the walls of the huge 
quadrangular precincts of the temples, and the 
cloisters for the priests, and the oval cells for the 

prisoners | | which they enclosed. Likewise, in 

the works actually in progress on the sites of tem- 
ples, palaces, and other great constructions, very 
much more depended in these remote epochs upon 
the application of direct human force, and very 
much less upon mechanical contrivances, than in 
subsequent periods. We give a single example of 
this. The huge blocks and slabs of stone with which 
the walls were built, and the still more unwieldy 
masses that formed the architraves of the colonnades, 
were not raised from the ground by ropes, to work- 
men upon scaffolds, as in modern architecture. 
They were heaved and rolled with infinite toil and 
risk of life and limb, up the inclined surface of huge 
mounds of Nile mud, by the slaves who were at- 
tached to the building.* These labours were never 

* So completely are many of the halls of the palace of Medinat Abou 
in Western Thebes, encumbered both within and without with these 
mounds, that I suspect they were never finished, and consequently the 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 249 

performed by freedmen for hire in ancient Egypt, 
They were accounted penal and degrading, and were 
always wrung by the torture of the lash from slaves, 
prisoners of war, and malefactors. These circum- 
stances in the customs of ancient Egypt suggest a 
conclusion of the very last importance for the mon- 
umental verification of " the king that knew not 
Joseph " of the Mosaic narrative. The number of 
commemorative remains of any Pharaoh being thus 
entirely dependent upon the amount of forced labour 
at his command, there must of necessity appear 
among the ruins of Egypt the name of one Pharaoh 
distinguished among all his predecessors and suc- 
cessors for the number of existing monuments of 
his reign, in an excess enormously disproportionate 
to the memorials of any other king of Egypt, if the 
Bible narrative be true. "We shrink not at all from 
this alternative. If this be not the case, then is 
the Bible account of the bondage in Egypt either a 
fiction or an exaggeration, which we hold to be 
a sin of a still deeper die against the truthfulness 
which its own precepts inculcate. But there is a 
Pharaoh so distinguished among all his fellows on 

scaffolding has not been removed. Herodotus relates that a man was 
killed, during the removal of a "block of granite, at Sais ; and that king 
Psametichus in consequence ordered it to be left where it was, and not 
put in its place in the temple, (lib. ii. c. 176.) But this was a modern 
refinement. The life of a workman was no such important matter in the 
days of Ramses. 



250 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the monuments of Egypt : and to an excess fully 
commensurate to the amount of human labour at 
his command, which the Bible assigns to " the king 
that knew not Joseph ;" and this Pharaoh is Ramses, 
whom we have already identified as the oppressor of 
Israel from considerations altogether distinct from 
this, and independent of it. 

The excess in the number of the existing monu- 
ments of Ramses over those of any other king of 
Egypt of any epoch, is so great, that the most sober 
statement of it sounds like exaggeration. The num- 
ber of kings of Egypt of the Pharaonic period, that 
is from the foundation of the monarchy by Menes, 
to its conquest by Alexander the Great, amounts to 
about 150. The existing monuments of Ramses 
are more in number, and greater in magnitude and 
extent, than those of the whole of the rest of the 
Pharaohs put together. The same fact appears 
when we descend to the details. Of the nine Pha- 
raonic obelises yet existing in the ruins of Rome, and 
brought thither by the emperors from Heliopolis and 
other cities in the Delta, six were either completed 
in the quarry of Ramses, having been begun there 
by his predecessors, or were executed by him alto- 
gether. Of the twenty-three other obelises of this 
epoch which yet exist in Egypt, and in the rest of 
the world, fifteen bear in like manner the name of 
Ramses, either alone or in connexion with some of 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 251 

his ancestry.* Of the eight temples which yet re- 
main in the ruins of Thebes, there is but one which 
Ramses did not either complete or build from the 
first. His name has also been read on the fragments 
of other temples which once stood at Thebes, but 
are now razed to the ground. If we now turn to 
the localities in the rest of Egypt, in which the 
name of Ramses has been found, we are thrown into 
the same predicament as in our account of him in 
the Delta. There is scarcely a mound of ruins in 
the whole of Egypt and Nubia, on which the name 
of Ramses does not appear, either as the builder of 
a temple to the local divinity, or as the author of 
extensive additions to one already existing. So that 
to chronicle them would be pretty nearly to give a 
list of the whole of the localities where ruins have 
been found in Nubia, Egypt, and the Delta. Every- 
where in the latter district, the name of Ramses 
stands all but alone. The greater monuments of 
ancient Egypt preserved in the museums of Europe, 
bear testimony to the same fact. The number of 
colossi, andriantes, statues, groups, sphinxes, and 
other memorials of the reign of Ramses that appears 
in them is out of all proportion greater than those 
of any other king of Egypt. 

The traditionary account of Ramses preserved by 
the Greeks, is of an exactly corresponding character. 

* Notes on Obelises, by J. Bonomi. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. vol. i. p. 158. 



252 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

We have many particulars of his reign in the notices 
of Egypt, both of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. 
He is named by the first of these authors, Sesostris, 
and by the latter of them Sesoosis. Both are merely 
attempts to write the name in his first ring. 
( ji^ 1 ^^ ra-merois : sothphre, which in the narra- 
tives of the priests to the Greek travellers was ab- 
breviated to sesothphre. This word Herodotus hel- 
lenized to Sesostris, and Diodorus to Sesoosis ; for 
both authors were ignorant of hieroglyphics, and 
therefore merely wrote from the ear. He was 
called Sesostris at Heliopolis and Memphis, where 
they heard of him, because his name in Lower 
Egypt was in the first ring. In Upper Egypt, at 
Thebes, where Grermanicus heard of him some time 
afterwards, he had the name of Ramses, which, 
being in the second ring, was his name in that 
division of the monarchy.* (/fMlffiPP j) 

The testimony of all these ancient authorities 
regarding Sesostris Ramses is perfectly uniform. 
He was by far the greatest monarch that ever sate 
upon the throne of Egypt. He built in every city 
in Egypt a temple to the city god. (Diod. i. 56.) 
He made enormous additions to the temple of Ptha 
at Memphis. The propylon or porch which he built 
at the entrance, was supported by two andriantes 

* See Tacitus, Ann. lib. ii. c. 60. 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 253 

(pillar-like statues) of himself and his queen, each 
thirty cubits high. (Her. ii. 110. Diod. i. 57.) The 
statue of himself still remains prostrate, but almost 
uninjured, on the plain of Metrahenny. His con- 
structions generally were remarkable for the enor- 
mous size of the blocks employed in building them. 
(Her. c. 108.) 

Thus fully and clearly is the monumental fame 
of Ramses corroborated by the testimony of those 
who visited Egypt 2000 years ago. 

We further learn, from these same authorities, 
many particulars regarding the great works of en- 
gineering, accomplished by Sesostris Ramses. He 
built a chain of fortifications along the entire north- 
eastern frontier of his kingdom, to defend it from 
the attacks of the Syrians and the Arabs. These 
extended from Pelusium on the sea, across the 
desert, to Heliopolis ; a distance of 1500 stadia — 
about 160 English miles. He likewise erected 
mounds to keep out the waters of the overflow from 
many cities which had suffered great inconvenience 
from this cause. His engineering works for the 
distribution of the waters of the Nile, were of the 
same colossal character. He intersected the entire 
district between Memphis and the sea with chan- 
nels of irrigation so wide and so numerous that he 
altogether altered the character of that part of 
Egypt. It became from thenceforth impracticable 



254 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

either for cavalry or war-chariots ; whereas before 
the times of Sesostris Ramses, it had been noted for 
equestrian warfare. (Diodorus, c. 57.) The older 
historian, Herodotus, confirms the whole of these 
particulars. He further states that Ramses mea- 
sured out the land thus reclaimed in square blocks, 
and distributed it by lot among his Egyptian sub- 
jects (c. 109) ; clearly implying that the Delta was a 
new country, and that Ramses was the first to 
annex it to Egypt. We had already inferred the 
same fact from the existing monuments of the reign 
of this monarch. 

Thus perfectly in harmony is the testimony of 
the Greek tradition with that of the cotemporary 
monuments regarding Sesostris Ramses. He had 
at his command a very far larger amount of forced 
human labour than any king of Egypt either before 
or after him. 

The next question that arises in the order of our 
discussion is, What account do these same authori- 
ties give of the circumstances which placed at his 
command this vast body of slaves ? 

The priests of the temples carefully explained to 
Diodorus that no single native Egyptian had put 
his hand to any one of the great works of Sesostris. 
They were constructed altogether by the forced 
labours of his prisoners of war. (c. 56.) This we 
also might have anticipated ; for it had been the 



THE KIXG THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 255 

custom at all times. The memory of the builder of 
the great pyramid (Cheops or Suphis of the fourth 
dynasty) was infamous in Egypt, because he had 
employed upon it the forced labour of his own sub- 
jects. (Her. ii. 124.) Had Sesostris followed his 
example, doubtless his memory would have shared 
the same fate. It would have been execrated, and 
his monuments defaced. 

The priesthood gave always the same account of 
the vast number of captives in Egypt in the days 
of Sesostris Ramses. They were the fruits of his 
victories. We have three versions of their story of 
his wars given at three different periods : That of 
Herodotus was related more than 450 b. c. Diodo- 
rus was in Egypt about the time of our Saviour ; 
and Tacitus with Grermanicus nearly a century 
afterwards. If we compare the three together we 
shall find that they are all agreed in the point that 
Sesostris Ramses spent many of the earlier years of 
his reign in foreign conquests : but, as we proceed, 
it is very amusing to discover that the extent of 
the geographical knowledge of the priestly narrators 
at each epoch, is the exact measure of the foreign 
conquests they assign to their hero. According to 
Herodotus, he embarked on the Red Sea, overran 
Asia as far as Scythia, and returned home through 
Europe, (c. 102, 103.) The hero of Diodorus throws 
all this into the shade. He subdues the whole 



256 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

south coast of Asia as far as India, a country 
scarcely known to Herodotus. He then marches 
inland and overruns Europe and Asia in a circuit 
which everywhere exactly overpasses the extreme 
limit of the conquests of Alexander the Great. He 
is made to subdue the nations immediately beyond 
this limit, whose very names had been before un- 
known either in Greece or Egypt. (Diod. lib. i. 
c. 55.) Had the names of any nations still more 
distant been familiar to them, doubtless their hero 
would have been sent thither also. 

But what are even these to the deeds in arms of 
the hero of the Theban priesthood a century after- 
wards, when the Roman prince Germanicus stood 
before a temple at Thebes, and demanded an expla- 
nation of a huge battle-piece sculptured on one of 
the propyla ? He received for answer, that it was 
one of the exploits of the great [Sesostris] Ramses, 
who had left Egypt on foreign conquest at the head 
of 700,000 fighting men, and had subdued Lybia, 
Ethiopia, the Medes, the Persians, Bactria and 
Scythia ; holding also in subjection Armenia and 
Cappadocia, and conquering Bythynia, on the one 
coast of Asia Minor, and Lycia on the other.* In 
a word, every tribe, nation, and country in East 
Africa and Asia which was at that moment con- 
tending for its independence with the arms of im- 

* Taciti Annales, ii. c. 60. 



THE KISG THAT KXEW XOT JOSEPH. 257 

perial Rome, had, by their account, been thousands 
of years before made by their hero the tributary of 
Egypt. These veracious narrators of history did 
not send their hero to Europe, it is true, and for 
precisely the same reason that their predecessors at 
Heliopolis forbore to make him conquer Tyre and 
Babylon to Herodotus. Germanicus had himself 
been there, and would therefore have been able to 
contradict them, from his personal knowledge. 

The existing monuments of Egypt happily put us 
in a position to apply a perfectly conclusive test to 
these narratives, in which we have already detected 
such strong prima facie evidence of falsehood. We 
have explained that of the war at the commence- 
ment of the reign of Ramses, no fewer than three 
different picture-narratives are still in existence, 
and that one of them (that at Abou Simbel) is all 
but perfect. In them therefore we have before us 
the one original, whence all these different versionsof 
the story were read by the priests to their foreign 
visitors. It was a very inconsiderable and inglorious 
affair, ending in nothing but concession and pacifi- 
cation. Not a single stronghold was taken, not an 
ounce of tribute nor one living captive was brought 
to Egypt, Had such been the case, assuredly they 
would have been paraded in a triumph ; but no such 
appears in any of the pictures of the campaign. It 
was apparently a mere march over the desert, a 

s 



258 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

battle and a retreat ; never was ancient falsehood 
more easily detected than this ! 

The prisoners then, with whom Ramses built the 
vast constructions that distinguish his reign, were 
not taken in the wars at the commencement of it. 
We say so, inasmuch as the cotemporary records of 
those wars contradict it ; which is only to say that 
they do not declare a thing in itself impossible. 

These monumental remains however, enable us 
to carry the enquiry one step further. No subse- 
quent war took place in the reign of Ramses, of any 
consequence ; certainly none in which he could 
possibly have taken any great number of captives. 
The excavation of the speos or cavern-temple at 
Abou Simbel was not begun until his thirty-eighth 
year. Yet is its vestibule adorned with the details 
of this affair at the beginning of his reign. Had any 
great action of war befallen in this long interval, 
surely it would have been recorded, and not an old 
and then almost forgotten event. Some other wars 
of Sesostris Ramses are in fact mentioned on the 
monuments, but not one that approaches in im- 
portance to this of the fifth year from his accession, 
the first of his sole reign. 

Yet all that the priests told the Greeks and Ro- 
mans concerning the vast works of Sesostris Ramses 
in Egypt, was true. The temples whence they read 
them, stand to this day, and repeat unerringly the 



THE KIXG THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 259 

same story. Whence then had this man the enormous 
amount of human labour at his command which 
enabled him in one life to accomplish more than 
all the other kings of Egypt put together, who had 
preceded and followed him for more than 2000 
years ? The Scripture account of the subtle and 
deceitful policy whereby the children of Israel were 
made slaves about this time, presents, we submit, 
the only possible solution of this wonderful and 
otherwise perfectly unaccountable anomaly, to which 
there is no parallel in the monumental history of 
any other country ! 

" And the king of Egypt spake to the midwives 
of the Hebrews, of which the name of the one was 
Shiprah, and the name of the other Puah. 

" And he said, "When ye do the office of a mid- 
wife to the Hebrew women, and see that [the 
infant] is a son, then ye kill him ; but if it be a 
daughter then she shall live. But the midwives 
feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt com- 
manded them, but saved the men-children alive. 
And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and 
said to them, Why have ye done this thing, and 
saved the men-children alive ? And the midwives 
said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are 
not as the Egyptian women ; for they are lively, 
and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto 
them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives. 

S 2 



260 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

" And the people multiplied and waxed very 
numerous. 

" And it came to pass, because the midwives 
feared God, that he made them houses/' Exod. i. 
15—21. 

Every branch of the healing art was hereditary, 
and most strictly prescriptive in Egypt. It was, 
moreover, so absolutely identified with religion, that 
its practitioners were all priests. The two person- 
ages to whom Pharaoh gave this instruction were 
Egyptians, as their names import ^o^ Tshiphre 
B%jf^ Paith. They were ladies of high rank, and 
at the head of the college, or guild of their profes- 
sion throughout all Egypt. They were to issue to 
the entire body of their subordinates a secret order, 
for which they were to feign a revelation from the 
goddess, the patroness of their mystery, Tun 
Tj Bsil * Their fear, however, of the invisible 
power whom they thus ignorantly worshipped, and 
their sense of the sacredness of their office, pre- 
vented them from obeying the mandate of Pharaoh. 
They thus subserved the divine purpose, Israel went 
on increasing, and therefore the divine blessing, 
giving abundant prosperity to the houses of their 
husbands, was their visible reward. 

" And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, 

* She was the Lucina of the Egyptian Mythology. Her name was 
Tamar, she was the wife of Noah. 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 261 

Every son that is born ye shall cast into the Nile, 
and every daughter ye shall save alive/' Exod. i. 
22. 

Pharaoh now becomes himself religious. All 
sacrifice was in the first institution vicarious. The 
sin of the offerer was imputed to the victim. In 
Egypt this was especially the case, as the ceremo- 
nial for the sacrifice of beasts abundantly testifies. 
The victim was brought to the altar with fire upon 
it. Wine was poured upon its head. The priest 
then stabbed it, invoking at the same time the 
name of the god. He then cut off the head, pro- 
nounced curses over it, and threw it into the river. 
(Herod, ii. 39.) The victims at first had been 
young persons and children of either sex, but 
always virgins. They were thrown into the river. 
(Porphyr. de Abstin. 199 R) * This was also the 
case with all the old idolatries. The grand and 
crowning rite of the entire round of service was a 
human sacrifice. The better feelings of men in 
Egypt, and other well-ordered countries, soon re- 
volted against these murderous rites ; and before 



* He here mentions that human sacrifices were offered at Heliopolis 
up to the time of Amosis, who abolished them, and substituted figures of 
wax, which were thrown into the river instead of children. 

Plutarch seems to have believed that human sacrifices were offered at 
Elythya (the god of which city was Sevek, the crocodile) even in his 
time. De Iside et Oscride, c. 73. 



262 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the time of Ramses, had substituted beasts or 
images for living boys or girls ; though it is scarcely 
needful to remark that human sacrifices made a 
part of the ceremonial of the idolatries of Canaan, 
Babylon, and other heathen nations, up to their 
extinction. It would be a fact perfectly familiar 
to the subjects of Ramses, that it was a direction 
of the primitive ritual of Egypt, that, on stated oc- 
casions, children should be thrown into the Nile in 
sacrifice. He would therefore find no difficulty in 
persuading them, that when he commanded the 
male infants of Israel to be thus immolated, he 
spake the mind of the gods. 

Ramses has now got the victims of his policy at 
considerable advantage. His strong military force 
keeps Israel in awe in the Delta. The flower of 
the manhood of all the tribes is dispersed over the 
whole of Egypt, and working under the whips of 
his taskmasters. He has now no more occasion to 
dissemble. He devotes the entire race to slavery 
and speedy extinction. The men will soon die out, 
under the hardships he meditates. The women will 
be the handmaids and drudges of the Egyptians. 
Such was his design, which doubtless, he would 
have accomplished, had not He that fought for 
Israel, been mightier than either Ramses or his 
gods. 

We have already explained that the infanticidal 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 263 

decree was probably issued in the interval between 
the births of Aaron and of Moses. 

" And there went a man of the house of Levi, 
and took a daughter of Levi. And the woman con- 
ceived and bare a son ; and when she saw him, that 
he was a goodly child, she hid him three moons. 
And when she could no longer hide him, she took 
for him an ark (basket) of papyrus rushes, and 
daubed it with asphalt, and put the child therein ; 
and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 
And his (Amram's) sister stood afar off to see what 
would be done to him." Exodus ii. 1 — 4. 

The tribe of Levi was at this time in very low 
estate. The causes of it we must now consider. 

Levi was the third son of Leah the wife of Jacob, 
by a fraudulent trepanned marriage, the result of 
which wrong the inspired narrative has plainly 
recorded : Jacob hated Leah. Gen. xxix. 21 — 34. 
For the unhappy offspring of such a marriage, the 
chances of parental tenderness and careful training 
are but small in any state of society. Where poly- 
gamy prevails, they only who have been themselves 
the witnesses of the abominations of an eastern 
harem, can have the remotest idea of the incessant 
tempest of the fiercest and worst passions of our 
nature, in the midst of which the children of Leah 
were nurtured. Their mother's wrongs, and how 
they might be redressed and avenged, were the ele- 



264 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ments whence their entire characters were to be 
developed. There is not a single transaction re- 
corded of the children of Leah, in which this fault 
of their early training does not appear. Hatred of 
the children of Rachel, contempt for their father, 
and that fierce, clannish, animal attachment to each 
other, which led them to hunt in couples, like wolves 
or hyaenas, and to tear in pieces the perpetrators of 
dishonour upon their sept, by stratagems of which 
the wild beasts would have been ashamed, had 
their powers been equal to them, were its bitter 
fruits. 

Even Reuben, though by nature mild, gentle, and 
amiable, had no more reverence for his father, than 
to perpetrate upon his house the unpardonable out- 
rage which cost him the primogeniture. Gen. xlix. 
3, 4. Judah, possessed of far more natural talent 
(see Gen. xliv. 14 — 34), and too shrewd, too saga- 
cious, and too avaricious to compromise himself by 
overt acts of lust or violence, has left, nevertheless, 
the melancholy record of his utterly unbridled pas- 
sions and ill-ruled household, in one of the most 
revolting passages in the entire volume of revela- 
tion. Of Levi and his next brother, their father 
himself shall speak, and in the spirit of prophecy. 

" Simeon and Levi are brethren, 

Their swords are weapons of violence. 

my soul, come thou not into their plot, 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 265 

With their confederacy mine honour be not thou 
united, 

For in their wrath they slew the men, 

And in their wantonness they houghed the oxen. 

Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce ; 

And their wrath, for it was cruel. 

I will divide them in Jacob ; 

Yea, I will scatter them in Israel/' 

Gen. xlix. 5 — 7. 

Of the doubtless innumerable instances in which 
the fierce passions that burnt in the bosoms of these 
men of blood had burst forth, two only are recorded. 
Their conspiracy to murder Joseph, we have already 
considered. The slaughter of the Hivites is even 
still more revolting. It maintains a bad eminence 
among the collected histories of the great atrocities 
that have been committed by man upon the earth. 
There is yet one aggravating circumstance in it 
which is not generally understood. They murdered 
Dinah their sister, as well as her paramour, and 
the whole of his kindred. There can be no doubt 
of this. It was this deed amid those of the rest of 
their lives of rapine, that drew down their father's 
most emphatic curse upon their guilty heads. This 
was an occurrence too disgraceful to his own an- 
cestry for Moses to record. No perceptible good 
purpose moreover would have been answered by 
the disclosure, and therefore it was graciously per- 



266 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

mitted him to spread the veil of oblivion over it : 
but there is every reason to believe that it took 
place : for Dinah is never mentioned afterwards. 

Here then was the sin which brought upon its 
perpetrators this fearful denunciation of the Divine 
vengeance ; and, moreover, he who spake by the 
lips of the dying and agonized father when he 
uttered it, " is not a man that he should lie, neither " 
the son of man that he should repent ! Hath he 
said, and shall he not do it ? or hath he spoken, 
and shall he not make it good ? " Its fulfilment 
however, is no where directly recorded : for the 
arrangement in the Holy Land whereby Levi had 
Jehovah and His service for his patrimony was pre- 
eminently a blessing ; the direct reversal of a curse ; 
as it is invariably styled in the language of Scrip- 
ture. (See Num. xviii. 20. Deut. x. 8, 9, &c.) It 
is well known also, no such fate befel Simeon, who 
was equally included in the malediction. 

The prophecy therefore must have received its 
fulfilment during the sojourn in Egypt ; and in the 
well-known gap in the genealogy of Levi and in the 
census afterwards, we point to the silent but highly 
significant evidences of it. The ruffian propensities 
of these men would soon fulfil their curse without 
any miraculous interposition, when the death of 
their father had in some measure freed them from 
the restraint which his authority had imposed upon 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 267 

them. In order rightly to apprehend this, the state 
of society which prevailed among the children of 
Israel in Egypt after his death must be considered. 

There is but one passage in the whole Bible in 
which any event that bef el Israel in Egypt after the 
death of Jacob, and before the rise of the king that 
knew not Joseph, is recorded. It occurs in the 
genealogy of Ephraim. 1 Chron. vii. 20 — 23. The 
history narrated in it amounts to this : The Eph- 
raimites crossed the desert on a predatory expedition 
into Philistia, for the purpose of driving off cattle. 
They were defeated with great slaughter by the 
men of Grath. Eliad in the direct line from the 
first-born of Ephraim was among the slain. 

This circumstance tells of a state of society in 
the Delta, on the death of Joseph and the first 
immigrants, perfectly analogous to that which our 
knowledge of the elements of which it was com- 
posed would have led us to anticipate. It con- 
sisted of 

I. The Lower Egyptians. The professors of the 
man-worship of the Pyramids. 

II. The Egypto-Canaanites, or Shepherds, their 
co-religionists and the close imitators of all their 
customs. 

III. The Canaanite rangers of the Desert, the 
inhabitants of Canaan Proper, and professing its 
local idolatry. 



268 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

IV. The children of Israel, now rapidly increasing 
in numbers. 

The transition from barbarism to civilization 
commenced by the regulations of Joseph at the 
famine, (above p. 134.) was also in progress at this 
time, and upon all these classes, for we shall pre- 
sently find that long afterwards the change was still 
far from complete. Quarrels, feuds, broils, and 
deeds of violence would inevitably attend such a 
state of things, and in the midst of these, the wild 
fierce propensities of Simeon and Levi would drive 
them with uncontrollable vehemence. Their sons 
would also follow them : and close at their heels. 
Had the government of Egypt been a weak one 
instead of a strong one, Simeon and Levi might 
have stood in its annals for great conquerors. But 
law in Egypt was always very powerful, and society 
therefore wonderfully peaceable and well-ordered ; 
so that Simeon and Levi would only figure among 
their cotemporaries as violent, quarrelsome, turbu- 
lent men, and their tribe as bad subjects, and 
troublesome, dangerous neighbours. Retribution 
would speedily follow. The entire population of 
every class would rise against them. They would 
be overpowered, and the laws both of social order 
and of war would take their course upon them. It 
was as bond-slaves and prisoners-of-war among the 
cities and tents of their brethren of the other tribes 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 269 

that Simeon and Levi were divided in Jacob, and 
scattered in Israel. As we have already explained, 
the misfortunes of Simeon and Levi during this 
interval are not recorded, but the fact that they 
underwent them is very significantly indicated by 
their places in the census of Israel in the Desert. 
In the first census, Simeon brings forward 59,300 
fighting men, Numb. i. 23., shewing that the in- 
crease in his tribe had been at least as rapid as in 
that of those of his brethren. But the Levites were 
left out of this census by express command, the 
reason for which is not given, (verses 47 — 50.) It 
app.ears however, and very clearly, in the following 
census. The whole of the living males of Levi of all 
ages, was then only 23,000 ; considerably less than 
half the average number of the fighting men (i. e. 
the men between 20 and 60) of each of the other 
tribes. Levi therefore had been omitted from the 
former census, because his numbers were so insig- 
nificant, that to have recorded them would have 
been to set him forth as a reproach in Israel. 
Simeon also partook in the curse of his progenitor, 
as this second census shows unmistakably. His 
59,300 has dwindled down to 23,000 only, — scarcely 
the half of the numbers of any one of the rest of his 
brethren, in the same enumeration. The men of 
the former census therefore had been far advanced 
in life, and past the age of prolificness. They fell 



270 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



in the wilderness and left few representatives be- 
hind them ; for the young men of the tribe had 
already perished in Egypt. 

Amram, the head of the tribe of Levi and his 
family, are now household slaves attached to one of 
the palaces of Si Phtha the viceroy of the Delta at 
Heliopolis. He himself is probably far away from 
his family, as head of his tribe, and task-master ■ 
over them in their forced labours in some distant 
quarry. His wife and sister, with his child, were 
housed in a wretched hovel in the court of the 
palace, and worked under the baton of the master 
of the house. 




FROM NAHRAI AT BENIHASSAN. 



The birth of Moses would not be an event in 
which their oppressors took any interest. Had they 
detected the concealment^ they would merely have 
thrown the infant into the river, and beaten the 
mother : — occurrences too frequent in the house of 
bondage everywhere to have attracted notice. 



THE KING THAT KXEW NOT JOSEPH. 271 

Baskets of the papyrus-rush were in common use 
in Egypt. The word translated ark is not Hebrew 
but Egyptian. Tinn. It is the name of the cage in 
which birds and small animals taken in the chase 
were kept alive for the purpose of domesticating 
them, according to the universal practice in these 
ancient times. It is written z=>J tb. 

" And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to 
bathe at the river, and her maidens walked in train 
or file [after her] along the bank of the Nile. And 
she saw the basket among the flags, and she sent 
her hand-maid to fetch it. And when she had 
opened it she saw the child ; and behold the babe 
wept. And she had compassion on him and said, 
This is one of the Hebrews' children/' verses 5, 6. 

This was Thouoris^^ C^~f P X Z^jT the daughter 
of Pharaoh Ramses, and the wife of Si-Phtha the 
last of the Xoite kings of the Delta. At this time 
she was united with her husband in the vice-regency 
of this division of Egypt. On the death of her 
father and younger brother, she became queen-regent 
over all Egypt. The clear monumental indications 
of this identity will appear in the progress of our 
enquiry. Thouoris was the priestess of the goddess 
Hathor,* the wife of Athom (Adam) the tutelary of 

* Hathor ^J was the Egyptian Venus. She was a deification of 
Eve. 



272 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Heliopolis. This is recorded in her tomb. It was, 
moreover, the universal custom in Egypt. All the 
princesses of the earliest epochs were also ministers 
to the worship of the goddesses. The occasion on 
which she went down in state to the water was, a 
religious solemnity, the commencement of which 
was an act of ablution in the sacred waters of the 
river. It was the festival of the new moon. Jo- 
chebed, the mother of Moses, was, as we have seen, 
one of the household slaves of the palace. She was 
therefore cognizant of all the movements of the 
princess. She put the basket with her infant in the 
place where the procession would approach the bank 
of the river, and set her husband's sister, and her 
fellow-slave to watch it afar off. The stage or quay 
by which the princess would descend to the water's 
edge would no doubt have an enclosure fenced off 
from the rest of the river, to keep out the crocodiles 
which at that time swarmed in the Nile everywhere. 
Within this enclosure the poor outcast was in com- 
parative safety. All the river was sacred : but it 
was especially so in those portions of it which ran 
by the temples and were enclosed off for the many 
ceremonies of ablution which formed so important 
and large a portion of the entire ritual of the wor- 
ship of Ancient Egypt. When the princess first 
perceived the cage, she probably supposed it might 
have been left there by some profane person who 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 273 

had dared to commit the act of impiety of " netting 
the water- fowl of the gods/' * The burst of natural 
feeling which gushed from her heart when she saw, 
and heard the cries of, the wretched forsaken infant 
whom the cruel edict of her father directed her to 
cast at once out of the enclosure, to be torn in 
pieces almost before it touched the water by the 
hungry monsters, who probably enough lay basking 
and wallowing by dozens together on the sand- 
banks adjacent, and excited by his cries, already 
gnashed their teeth for their prey, suggests a very 
important conclusion. The milk of human kind- 
ness had stirred in the breasts of other women in 
Egypt, besides the princess Thouoris, at the sight of 
these unoffending and helpless sufferers. The ex- 
pedient adopted by the mother of Moses was a com- 
mon one, — and thereby many of the sons of Israel 
had been rescued from the fate to which the law of 
Ramses had consigned them. That no great num- 
ber of infants had perished by this barbarous per- 
secution, the census at the Exodus makes abund- 
antly apparent. The whole tenor also of the subse- 
quent notices of the Egyptians in the books of Moses 
goes to prove, that the bondage with its attendant 
cruelties was the work of Pbaraoh, and his council- 
lors, not of his subjects. The inspired history 

* This was one of the forty-two mortal sins of the moral code of 
Ancient Egypt. 

T 



274 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

combines moreover with the monuments to acquit 
Si-Phtha and his illustrious spouse from any very 
active share in the sorrows of Israel. 

" Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, 
Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew 
women, that she may nurse the child for thee ? 
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go, and the 
maid went and called the child's mother. And 
Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child 
and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. 
And the woman took the child and nursed it." 
Verses 7 — 9. 

The name Thouoris in the Greek lists, and the 
dynasty to which she belonged (the 19th, that of 
Ramses her father) are all that profane tradition 
has handed down regarding her.* The history of 
this illustrious lady is, with these exceptions, alto- 
gether monumental. Nevertheless, the few notices 
they embody, very remarkably confirm the inspired 

* She is made the third successor of her father Ramses. She was in 
fact his second successor. She is also said to be a man, but the motive 
of this change of sex is very obvious. According to the chronological 
computations of the Greek compilers of these lists, the siege of Troy took 
place during her reign ; and as Homer says, that Polybus was the king 
of Egypt at that time, of course this is king Polybus ; and the account of 
him which appears in Homer's verses they have appended as an historical 
notice to the name of Thouoris in the lists. This fact is very instructive. 
It discloses the notions of writing history that prevailed among the com- 
pilers of the Greek tradition regarding Egypt. The name Thouoris is 
plainly that of a woman, if it be an Egyptian name. 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 275 

narrative. She had no family, and her husband 
survived her for nearly forty years. She was queen 
of all Egypt for a short period on the death of her 
younger brother Amenephthis. These monumental 
facts suggest the certainty that she was the eldest 
daughter of Ramses, and that at the time of her 
marriage she was of somewhat advanced age, and 
had been for many years attached to the service of 
religion as one of the vestals or pallaces* which 
was the usual fate of the princess royal of Egypt. 
Her husband, on the other hand, was not a child 
merely ; he was an infant at the time of their 
marriage. No unusual disparity in these matches 
of policy and convenience. Probably enough, it 
had been the troubles consequent upon an infant 
succession that had furnished the pretext for 
the interference of Ramses in the affairs of the 
Xoite kingdom which had issued in this marriage. 
These circumstances seem to be all implied in the 
inspired narrative of the transaction before us, 
which we assume to have taken place in the tenth 
year of the captivity, and of the marriage of 
Siphtha and Thouoris. Pharaoh's daughter was 
evidently a sovereign queen. The edict of her fa- 
ther was nothing to her. She disregarded it openly, 
deliberately, and in the face of her whole court, 
Thouoris was at this time sole administratrix of the 

* An order of priestesses, generally the daughters of Pharaoh. 
T 2 



276 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

monarchy of her husband, who was still a mere 
child, under tutors and governors. The operation 
of the law therefore, and its suspension in the 
Delta, were altogether in her own breast. In re- 
gard to the succession, moreover, Thouoris was most 
painfully situated. In all probability it was by the 
laws of nature impossible that a child of hers 
should sit on the throne of her husband, and she ■ 
had for this reason been selected from among the 
many daughters of Ramses for the wife of Siphtha. 
In these circumstances, her public adoption of the 
outcast infant of a tribe whom the same policy 
whereby she had been condemned to childlessness, 
had also doomed to a cruel death, was noble and 
most womanly. 

The circumstances of Amram, the father of Moses, 
and head of the tribe of Levi, would be materially 
altered by this event. As nurse of a son of the 
house of Pharaoh, Jochebed his wife would take 
rank in Egypt next to the princesses of the blood. 

The census of the tribe afterwards, when it 
entered the holy land, renders it far from impro- 
bable that the mitigations which would follow upon 
this change in the circumstances of its head, had 
saved it from extinction. 

" And the child grew ; and she [his mother] 
brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he be- 
came her son. And she called his name Moses ; 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 277 

and she said, Because I drew him out of the water." 
Verse 10. 

The name is an Egyptian one. It was written 
thus $>^S^l"litt nu-mu-shf] " received, 
[taken] from Nu (Xoah) of the waters/' This name. 
like Sesostris, was abbreviated in common parlance 
to mii-she, as the Hebrews wrote it.* 

" And it came to pass in the days when Moses 
was grown up." Verse 11. 

" And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of 
the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. 
And it came to pass when he was full forty years 
old," Acts vii. 22, 23. 

The collation of these two inspired passages 
elicits the fact, that an interval of forty years 
elapsed after the last event recorded, during which 
nothing has been written regarding the history of 
Israel. It is incumbent upon us to supply this in- 
terval from the monumental history of Egypt. 

The commencement of the captivity falling upon 
the 21st of Ramses, the birth of Moses took place 
in his 31st, or thereabout, by our calculation. As 

* In Manetlio's account of the Exodus, preserved by Josephus, (Cont. 
Apion. I. 25.) his name is said to be Osarsiph, or Closes. The former 
name is j p ^ \jh oskir-shf "taken from Osiris ; M and its use by 

Manetho, shows him to have been the votary of a philosophic modification 
of the ancient superstition which was first invented in his days. It made 
Osiris to represent every thing tee/, and Seth or Typhon, every thing dry. 



278 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the whole reign of Ramses lasted for 66 or 68 
years, it follows that 35 or 37 years of this unre- 
corded interval were occupied by the termination 
of it. The particular of this reign, directly perti- 
nent to the history of Israel, namely, his identifica- 
tion with " the king that knew not Joseph/' has 
been already sufficiently discussed. The following 
tabular arrangement of all the dated monuments of 
it' that are known to exist, is instructive as to its 
general history : 

Year of the 
reign of Ramses. 

1st tablet at the quarry of Gebel Silsili 
commemorating the hewing of stone 
for a temple .... 4 
1st war (with Sheth) . . .5 

the first of his sole reign. 
2nd war with Asiatics (papyrus at Turin) 8 
3rd war (with Sheth) Karnak . .9 

4th war with Asiatics (Sallici papyrus) 14 

Pacification with Sheth . . .21 

Commencement of captivity. 
2nd tablet at Gebel Silsili . . 30 

3rd tablet at Gebel Silsili on the occasion 

of hewing stone for a temple . . 34 

The speos at Abou Simbel in Nubia com- 
menced • . . . .35 
4th tablet at Gebel Silsili . 37 
Hewing stone for a building. 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 279 

Year of the 
reign of Ramses. 

Speos of Abou Simbel completed . 38 

5th tablet at Gebel Silsili . . 40 

6th ditto ditto . . 44 

Funeral tablet at Florence, one of the 

officers of Ramses who died in the 

year of his reign . . .62 

Tablet at the British Museum . . 66 

Some historical deductions of considerable in- 
terest arise from this synopsis of the dated cotem- 
porary monuments of the reign of Ramses. 

I. All the wars of Ramses took place in the first 
twenty years of his reign. 

This is conformable with the Greek tradition. 

II. The treaty with Sheth was of the definite and 
important character which its hieroglyphic record 
states it to have been. It was a permanent pacifi- 
cation. No war occurred afterwards during the 
reign of Ramses. 

Here again the Greek tradition is literally cor- 
rect. There was peace in Egypt with all the world 
throughout the latter years of the reign of Sesostris. 
So many were his captives, that all the drudgery of 
Egypt was performed by them, and never did the 
country enjoy such a measure of temporal prosperity 
as at this period. 

III. It was the 30th year of his reign that he 



280 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

began to hew blocks of red sand-stone from Gibel 
Silsili for the construction of temples at Thebes. 
This is, according to our computation, within a year 
of the birth of Moses. We have assumed that the 
building of the fortifications of Pithom and Ramses, 
and the vast engineering works wherewith he in- 
tersected the Delta, would occupy about this 
period ; and at this time it is very supposeable that 
Ramses would permanently reside either at Heli- 
opolis or Xois. Here, in the midst of the Israelites 
he would have abundant opportunities of observing 
their rapid increase, notwithstanding his grievous 
oppression of them, and notwithstanding the mur- 
derous instructions he secretly gave to Shiphrah 
and Puah. We have already ascertained that his 
infanticidal decree must have been issued in the 
interval between the birth of Aaron and that of 
Moses. We now find that the year before the latter 
event, Ramses was in all probability in Upper 
Egypt superintending the building of the temples 
of Thebes. Nothing is more probable than that 
soon after passing this revolting law he should have 
fled from the odium which it evidently excited in 
his subjects of all ranks in that part of his do- 
minions where it came into operation, leaving the 
execution of it to his officers under the viceregency 
of his daughter. 

The entire independency of the edict which Tho- 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 281 

uoris displayed in the adoption of Moses, is also 
well accounted for by this date. Ramses, her 
father, had at this time finally left the Delta to her 
sole government, probably only returning thither 
afterwards on rare occasions : for we find that the 
great constructions of the following years of his 
reign were all in Upper Egypt and Nubia. 

IV. The war of the 5th of Ramses (the first of 
his sole reign) was assuredly the great military ex- 
ploit of his life : inasmuch as he has left three repe- 
titions of it on three of his greatest constructions ; 
the first of which he did not begin to build until 
more than thirty years afterwards. 

V. The same monumental facts reduce to a simple 
impossibility the statement of the Greek traditions, 
that they were prisoners of war who built the con- 
structions of Ramses. 

The condition of Israel in Egypt must necessarily 
have undergone considerable mitigation after the 
adoption of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter. The 
silence of the inspired historian implies this fact, 
which appears still more clearly in the constant 
murmurings of the entire body of the people while 
in the wilderness after the Exodus, and the frequent 
conspiracies among them to displace Moses and 
return to Egypt under the leadership of the heads 
of the tribes. Had the cruelties and horrors which 
marked the commencement and termination of the 



282 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

captivity, been in no way mitigated in the interval 
of the century for which it lasted, surely the rem- 
nant of so unparalleled a persecution would never 
have conspired against their liberator, to return to 
the lash of the taskmaster and the house of bon- 
dage ! 

The fact thus strongly implied in the history of 
Israel, we now find to be rendered probable by the- 
monumental history of Egypt. The government of 
the Delta seems at this time to have been a vice- 
royalty, administered from the throne of the kings 
who had known Joseph, and by a princess who had 
shown by her adoption of Moses, her sympathy with 
the sentiments of her predecessors. The immediate 
author of the captivity had left the Delta to her 
sole regency. So that, not only did the infanticidal 
edict fall into utter disuse, (we never hear of it 
again in the inspired narrative) but the circum- 
stances of the Israelites would be similar to their 
condition under the Xoite kings, with the exception 
that they were now strangers in Egypt, and that 
their forced services were in constant requisition at 
the quarries, the temples, and other public works 
which were in progress in every city throughout 
the land of Egypt. 

The date of the death of Ramses is the only par- 
ticular concerning it, preserved in the history of 
Egypt, traditive or monumental. His successor was 



THE KING THAT KNEW NOT JOSEPH. 283 

named Amenemnes, or Amenephthis, in the lists. 
The monuments declare him to have been his thir- 
teenth son. He wrote his name as king of Egypt 




The monumental history of this monarch is very 
scanty. His traditive history is confined to a single 
fact. He reigned in Egypt for five years only. 
There is no evidence that the death of Ramses ex- 
ercised any particular influence on the Delta, or 
that Amenephthis interfered at all with the vice- 
royalty of his sister. At his death, however, many 
changes took place, which brought the period now 
under review to its termination in the forty-second 
year of the age of Moses, which corresponds with 
the " full forty years old " of the inspired narrative. 



284 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MOSES IN MIDIAN. 

" And it came to pass in those days when Moses 
was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and 
looked on their burdens/' Exod. ii. 11. 

" And when [Moses] was cast out, Pharaoh's 
daughter took him up and nourished him for her 
own son. And Moses was learned in all the wis- 
dom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words 
and in deeds. And when he was full forty years 
.old it came into his heart to visit his brethren the 
children of Israel/' Acts vii. 21 — 23. 

" By faith Moses when he was come to years re- 
fused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; 
chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of 
God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. 
Esteeming reproach for Christ greater riches than 
the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect unto the 
recompence of reward." Heb. xi. 24 — 26. 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 285 

This is the whole of the direct inspired history, 
and of the traditions which have had the subse- 
quent sanction of inspiration regarding the life of 
Moses, at the epoch at which we have now arrived. 
These inspired writers throw, at the least, as much 
light on the cotemporary monumental history of 
Egypt, as they receive illustration from it. We do 
not hesitate to give it as a marvellous coincidence, 
that the death of Amenephthis took place when 
Moses was forty-two years old ; and that on this 
event the aged and childless princess, his foster- 
mother, became Queen of all Egypt. So that the 
history of Egypt at this epoch — faintly traced upon 
its cotemporary monuments — renders not only pos- 
sible, but highly probable, that which the Bible 
states to have been the fact. When Thouoris be- 
came queen of all Egypt, she proposed to inaugu- 
rate Moses her foster-son as her successor and co- 
regent with her husband on her demise. But Moses 
refused to " be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter/' 
and thereby to be afterwards Pharaoh himself. We 
now understand at what a sacrifice of all the noblest 
and most exalting ties and ambitions of human 
nature, Moses chose the " reproach of Christ;" and 
perceive the extent to which his refusal illustrates 
the power of the faith, which was his motive in 
doing so. 

And he [Moses] spied an Egyptian smiting an 



286 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this 
way and that way, and when he saw no man, he 
slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And 
when he went out the second day, behold two men 
of the Hebrews strove together ; and he said to him 
that did the wrong, Why smitest thou thy fellow ? 
And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge 
over us ? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst . 
the Egyptian ? And Moses feared and said, Surely 
this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard 
this thing he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled 
from the face of Pharaoh." Exodus ii. 11 — 15. 

The events in the history of Egypt which have 
taken place since we last considered it, are required 
to harmonize this narrative with that which pre- 
cedes it. It is, as we have explained, only by the 
aid of the facts contained in the inspired narrative 
that the history of Egypt at this time can be written. 

Thouoris seems from the first to have married the 
infant heir to the throne of the Xoites, on the con- 
dition that on his father's death she should succeed 
to the throne of all Egypt. As, however, was too often 
the case, she, together with a host of her brothers and 
sisters, were passed by, by her father in his extreme 
old age, and his thirteenth son Amenephthis, a very 
young man, was named his successor. On the death 
of this young king, after a short and monumentally 
inglorious reign of five years, Thouoris was called 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 287 

to the throne ; probably by the states of Egypt, to 
redress the wrong which her father's appointment 
had done her. It would seem from the coincidence 
of dates, that her first act on her accession was 
prompted by her affection for her foster-son. His 
refusal to be named her successor, would not fail to 
be a deep mortification and grief to her, however 
fully she might enter into and appreciate the purity 
of his motives. She seems from the monuments to 
have left to her husband, now Pharaoh Siphtha, the 
administration of the affairs of Lower Egypt, and 
to have retired to Thebes ; when she not only ap- 
pointed for her successor the infant son of Ame- 
nephthes, but directed that the government should 
be carried on in his name ; constituting Siphtha, 
her husband, his tutor, and co-regent during life. 
Queen Thouoris seems thenceforward to have led a 
religious life at Thebes ; interfering but little with 
affairs of state, and occupying herself in the deco- 
ration of the tomb for herself and her husband, 
which is more tastefully and elaborately furnished 
than any other in the valley of the kings, and in 
other works of a devotional character : such being 
the nature of all the existing memorials of her 
reign. 

After the departure of his foster-mother, Moses 
still resided at the court of Pharaoh Siphtha as a 
prince of Egypt. At this time the metropolis and 



288 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ordinary residence of Siphtha seems to have been 
the city of Ramses in the Western Delta. 

It would be in some official capacity that Moses 
went down to the opposite border of Egypt to inspect 
the forced labours of the Israelites. The descrip- 
tion of these labours in the passage before us, shews 
that we have correctly estimated the position of 
Israel in Egypt at this time. All the men of Israel, 
were at all times liable to be called out to serve in 
the gangs of workmen, but there were no circum- 
stances of aggravation and insult added to this 
coercion by the government. So that they were 
not in a worse position than the Canaanites in 
the Holy Land in Solomon's reign. Their suffer- 
ings arose from acts of individual oppression and 
cruelty from the Egyptian officers and the task- 
masters of their own brethren that were over them. 
They were not systematically enacted as before and 
afterwards. 

The scene which took place when Moses " looked 
upon the burdens of his brethren/' affords clear evi- 
dence that he had hitherto been a stranger to the 
actual sight of their sufferings. It is, moreover, one 
that would hardly fail to have taken place on the 
first visit of a high-minded, kindly-natured man, 
hitherto only accustomed to command, to the house 
of bondage. This circumstance which excited Moses, 
is one of daily, hourly occurrence at all times, and 



MOSES IN MIDIAX. 289 

in all places, where man is slave to man. Upon 
any pretext, or no pretext, a slave is laid down, and 
cruelly, mercilessly beaten by his tyrant. It is a 
hard matter ! (we speak from personal experience 
in the land of Egypt and elsewhere) for a man to 
restrain himself from acts of violent retribution, to 
whom the spectacle is yet a strange one ; even when 
the tyrant is of his own race, and the slave a stran- 
ger. We can therefore readily understand that the 
indignation which would fire the soul of Closes at 
the sight of one of his own brethren thus maltreated 
by an Egyptian, should burst forth uncontrollably, 
and that, seizing the opportunity when none but 
Israelites were present, he should cut down the 
oppressor with his scymitar and bury him in the 
sand. The act was a perfectly natural one : — a 
consideration which strongly corroborates the truth 
of the narrative, though (as we scarcely need ob- 
serve,) this consideration by no means justifies the 
act itself. 

The transaction of the following day disclosed the 
extent of the error into which the impetuosity of 
Moses had betrayed him. The narrative is again 
wonderfully truthful. A Hebrew task-master, in 
sedulous imitation of his superiors, is avenging upon 
the person of one of his unoffending brethren under 
him, the stripes which still smart on his own. How 
exactly this is true wherever slavery prevail?, they 

u 



290 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

who are most conversant with it will be best able 
to declare. Even to this day, in every slave-plan- 
tation in the west, in every slave-bazaar and com- 
pound in the east, the cruellest task-masters are the 
slaves themselves over their fellow-slaves. The ex- 
postulation of Moses with the oppressor, shews him 
the position in which his rash act has placed him. 
The Hebrew task-masters will confederate with the" 
Egyptian officers, and be the first to impeach him 
as a violator of the laws of Egypt. If Moses had 
seen much of slavery, he might have been well 
assured of this, though the threat of the Hebrew 
task-master had never been uttered. It is the one 
circumstance that perpetuates slavery all over the 
world. The slaves in authority are in league with 
the masters against their fellow-slaves. 

In the eye of the law in ancient Egypt, as in 
every well-ordered country, human life was very 
precious. It awarded the punishment of death not 
to the shedder of blood merely, but to the bystander 
also, who, seeing the outrage, forbore to defend the 
sufferer to the peril of his own life.* The impeach- 
ment of Moses therefore which immediately fol- 
lowed, left no choice to Pharaoh Siphtha but the 
issue of the order for his arrest and trial. Moses, 
however, had notice of this in time to escape into 
the desert, and leave the bounds of Egypt, according 

* Diod. Sic. i. § 77. 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 291 

to the invariable practice of accused parties in that 
country at the present day. 

" And Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and 
dwelt [sate down, rested] in the land of Midian, and 
he sate by a well/' Exod. ii. 15. 

Midian crossed the peninsula of Sinai, and ex- 
tended along the eastern coast of the gulf of Akaba. 
It was probably at some mine or quarry in the 
desert that Moses had killed the Egyptian officer. 
The Midianites were descendants from Abraham 
(Gen. xxv. 2) ; they were therefore akin to Israel, 
which was doubtless the reason why Moses sought 
refuge in their country. 

u Now the priest-prince * of Midian had seven 
daughters : and they came and drew water, and 
filled the troughs to water their father's flock. And 
the shepherds came and drave them away, but Moses 
stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. 
And when they came to the seer [prophet] their 
father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon 
to-day ? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us 
out of the hand of the shepherds : and also drew 
water enough for us, and watered the flock. And 
he said unto his daughters, And where is he ? Why 
is it that ye have left the man ? Call him that he 
may eat bread. And Moses was content to dwell 



See Genesis xiv. 18. 
U 2 



292 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

with the man, and he gave Moses Zipporah his 
daughter. 

" And she bare him a son, and he called his name 
Gershom ; for he said, I am a stranger in a strange 
land." Exod. ii. 16—22. 

These transactions took place out of Egypt : they 
are merely quoted here to continue the narra- 
tive. 

" And it came to pass after many days, that the 
king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel 
sighed by reason of their bondage/' ver. 23. 

Another long period has now elapsed, during 
which no single event is recorded in the history 
either of Israel or Egypt. Its termination is marked 
by the death of the Pharaoh who had sought the 
life of Moses. In consequence of this event the 
sufferings of Israel in Egypt were fearfully aggra- 
vated, so that " they sighed by reason of their bon- 
dage." The phraseology of the passage leaves no 
doubt on this head. After the death of the king, 
Israel sighed by reason of his bondage, as he had 
not sighed while Pharaoh lived. The circumstances 
in the history of Egypt which occasioned this change, 
we have now to consider. 

The period we find, Acts vii. 30, to be forty years 
proximately, or in round numbers. This is assuredly 
the sense in which the epochs in the life of Moses 
are to be interpreted. For, as has been very justly 



MOSES m MIDIAN. 293 

remarked,* to assume an exact tripartite division of 
his life into three equal periods, is also to assume a 
miraculous interference on a very trivial occasion, 
and for no conceivable purpose ; inasmuch as with- 
out it the events of human life never do, in this 
manner, conform to the rules of arithmetic. 

The Pharaoh who had died, we have ascertained 
to be Siphtha, the last of the line of the Aphophean 
kings. This his place in the annals of Egypt (for 
which it is incumbent upon us to explain that we 
are ourselves alone responsible) solves entirely the 
many anomalies that otherwise beset his monu- 
mental history. He is not named in the lists, yet 
assuredly he was a king in all Egypt, and for a very 
long period. He was evidently cotemporary with 
Ramses, and one of his near successors on the throne. 
He was also of the family of Ramses, for in a tablet 
at Gournou he worships Ramses and his progenitors 
as his ancestry. Nevertheless, he is the only one of 
this entire line of Pharaohs who has rejected the 
name of Amun from both the rings of his royal 
titles, styling himself in the first of them the wor- 
shipper of Ra at Heliopolis, and in the second, of 
Ptha at Memphis. Thus utterly ignoring the exis- 
tence of Thebes, the third capital of Egypt, and, in 
the days of the illustrious line of kings to which he 
claims affinity, the greatest of all, and the only royal 

* Bimsen's Egypt's Place, vol. i. 



294 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



residence, 



/"o\ 



the sun/'] 
son of 






/^> [" light of the sun, proved by 



/WW 

on 



[" one with Phtha, Siphtha the 
Ptha " ] and identifies himself 
altogether with the northern portions of the mon- 
archy. These circumstances are all explained by 
the assumption that he was the infant son of the 
last of the Xoite kings, and that Ramses took ad- 
vantage of the death of his father to annex his do- 
minions to the crown of Egypt, by espousing Siphtha 
to his daughter Thouoris, to whom he confided the 
viceroyalty of the Delta in the name of her infant 
husband. 

We have already explained that, on the refusal 
of the crown of Egypt by Moses, Thouoris, his foster- 
mother, went to Thebes, when she appointed the 
infant son of Amenephthis his successor in the 
monarchy, administered the government in his 
name, and employed herself in works of piety. Her 
husband probably remained in the Delta. 

The character of Siphtha appears, from the few 
monuments of his reign that are known to exist, to 
have been precisely that which the inspired narra- 
tive leaves to be inferred regarding him. He was 
an unambitious, mild, humane monarch, very likely 
to have acquiesced in the arrangement whereby his 
queen adopted for her son the Hebrew boy who 
probably had been his playmate in their childhood, 
inasmuch as after the death of Thouoris, and up to 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 295 

the period of bis own death, we find him always 
religiously conforming to the still more humiliating 
arrangement of which she also was the author, and 
which imposed upon him the cares and toils of 
sovereignty, but conferred all its honours upon her 
infant nephew. 

Thouoris survived for seven years only the refusal 
of Moses to be her son and heir.* She seems to 
have from the first associated the infant her nephew, 
whom she made her successor, with her in the sove- 
reignty ; and also to have administered the kingdom 
in his name. So that his reign dates its commence- 
ment from his own birth two years before the death 
of his father, while she and her husband appear 
merely as his co-regents. 

Except their tomb, the extent and elaborate 
beauty of which we have often mentioned, the me- 
morials of the reign of Siphtha and Thouoris are 
but very few, and they altogether of a religious 
character, commemorating acts of worship to their 
ancestry in the temples of Thebes. They seem to 
have employed the Israelites in the completion of 
the many temples and other constructions begun by 
their father, and which they were contented to 
complete in his name, omitting their own altogether. 
The abundance of the monuments of Ramses re- 
quires some such circumstance, notwithstanding the 

* Lists of Manetho, D}*nasty XIX. 



296 ISRAEL m EGYPT. 

number of workmen at his command, and the length 
of his reign. They may also have proceeded with 
works of utility, which leave no monumental trace 
behind them, but nevertheless, there cannot be a 
doubt that the sufferings of the captivity were 
considerably mitigated when Siphtha and Thouoris 
had the sole rule in the Delta. 

We find from the passage before us, that the death 
of Siphtha took place in the 39th year of the reign 
of his nephew and co-regent, which was likewise 37 
years after the death of Amenephthis, and 30 years 
after that of Queen Thouoris. 

The name of this Pharaoh was written in hier- 
oglyphics, 



r&\ 



of the 
with 



/j?\ (wis kru ra mn-amun) (watcher 
= transmigrations of the sun, one 

D 8 

>^> Amun) ; (stei mn-pth) (Sethos one 
with Phtha.) It appears from the comparison of the 
lists with the Scripture narrative, that Sethos was 
born when his father ximenephthis had been for three 
years king of Egypt ; and that on his father's death, 
two years afterwards, he was adopted by Queen 
Thouoris, his aunt, who not only made him king of 
Egypt from his birth, but carried on the affairs of 
government in his sole name, constituting herself and 
her husband Siphtha his guardians and co-regents 
during life. In the ninth year of his age and reign, 
his foster-mother died. The circumstance that both 
Moses and Pharaoh Sethos II. had been the adopted 



MOSES IN MEDIAN. 297 

sons of this queen of Egypt, we shall find hereafter 
to be one well worthy of note. 

The temple-records of Egypt, which were quoted 
by the historian Josephus,* make Sethos II. to have 
been a great warrior, who left his own dominions 
at the commencement of his reign to conquer foreign 
countries, and committed the affairs of the monarchy 
altogether to his relatives and councillors. We have 
already read the same story from the same records 
of the grandfather of this king, and detected its 
utter falsehood. The monuments are equally ex- 
plicit in the present instance. They give not even 
a shadow of support to the tradition. So that this 
fable of the warrior was the screen wherewith the 
lying priests of the Egyptian idolatry covered over 
equivocal and disgraceful transactions in the reigns 
of their ancient kings. Sethos II. was an irreligious, 
vicious, idle profligate. His tomb, in the valley of 
the kings, is the instinctive chronicle of his infamy. 
The excavation and decoration of the tomb of a 
king of Egypt began on the day of his accession, 
and ended on the day of his death. The superin- 
tendance and direction of it were duties so sacred, 
that even Pharaoh could not perform them by 
proxy. His own presence, his own directing mind 
must be there, or the work stood still. At the 
instant of his death, it ceased altogether. In what- 

* Contra Apion. i. 15. 



298 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ever state of imperfection it might be, no stroke of 
the chisel, no trace of the pen, passed over it again. 
The mummy of Pharaoh was laid in the vault — 
finished or unfinished — and the tomb was closed. 
So that there is much history to be read in the wild 
and desolate valley of the kings, in the desert of 
Western Thebes. The long reign of a pious mon- 
arch is marked by a suite of corridors and halls 
excavated in the mountain, to an extent which 
threatens the stability of the superincumbent mass, 
and gorgeously and elaborately decorated with hie- 
roglyphics and reliefs, like the vault of Sethos I.* 
A reign, suddenly terminated by untimely death, 
appears in the abrupt cessation of works in pro- 
gress, promising great excellence and beauty when 
complete, like the tomb of x\menephthis.-f- It is 
thus that the tomb of Sethos II 4 writes his history. 
In grandeur of design his tomb is equal to the 
largest in the valley, and an immense range of cor- 
ridors and halls is excavated : so that this Pharaoh 
had at his command a supply of labour equal to the 
greatest of his peers. The parts of it also that are 
finished are of exquisite execution ; so that he had 
no lack of skilled artists. Nevertheless this vault 
is distinguished from all the other tombs in the 
valley by a very remarkable peculiarity. No single 

* No. 17, of Sir G. Wilkinson's enumeration, 
f Ibid. No. 8. X Ibid. No. 15. 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 299 

corridor or hall throughout it was ever finished, 
though they were all begun. I was not able to 
discover even a wall which had been completed, 
except perhaps the roof of the inclined corridor, 
which forms the entrance. Yet in every part there 
are bits which have been finished with the utmost 
care ; the rest of the picture of which they formed 
a part, being merely traced with minium or char- 
coal on the stucco. The opposite wall of the apart- 
ment has not been stuccoed or even dressed prepa- 
ratoty to it. It has been merely roughed out with 
the chissel, and the chips and fragments encumber 
the floor of the hall to this day. This is the case 
with the entire tomb, from its entrance to the last 
or golden hall, }ft=&\ in which stood the sarcophagus. 
It is not so, we repeat it, with any of the other 
tombs in the valley. Up to the furthest point they 
are all finished with the utmost care. It is only 
there that the work of decoration ceases suddenly : 
making it evident that the commencement of each 
of the halls in the tomb of Pharaoh, took place on 
the recurrence of some stated festival ; and that it 
was his duty to see that in the interval, the works 
both of excavation and decoration, were complete, 
and that all was ready to proceed with the new 
work. In this his duty, which was esteemed of the 
most sacred and awful obligation in ancient Egypt, 
Sethos II. failed altogether. The work in his tomb 



SOO ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

was merely continued during the actual celebration 
of the festival : that ended, and all the workmen 
were withdrawn, save a few unskilled drudges to 
carry on the excavation, that the treasure which 
the states of Egypt had assigned to him for this 
purpose might be lavished in sensual indulgences. 
The skilled workmen at his disposal would be hired 
out to his princes and nobles, and their wages would- 
be speedily absorbed in the same insatiable vortex. 
There is no other mode of accounting for these ap- 
pearances in the tomb of Sethos II. • 

At the period now under review, Sethos II. had 
been for thirty-seven years actual king of Egypt. 
That his reign was a long one, appears from his 
sarcophagus as well as his tomb. This receptacle 
was most elaborately and exquisitely finished. With 
the means of working the hard red granite at the 
disposal of ancient Egypt, it must have employed 
any number of workmen that could be engaged 
upon it at the same time, for many years. The 
fragments lie scattered to this day on the floor of 
the last hall in his tomb, together with the chips 
that have fallen there from the chisels of the exca- 
vators, the rude marks of which still remain on the 
unsightly walls of this mere hole in the rock. The 
name of Sethos II. is not unfrequently written on 
the great remains of Thebes and other cities through- 
out Egypt, but everywhere they are upon trifling 
additions to the constructions of his ancestors. 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 301 

The death of Siphtha, which is recorded in the 
inspired narrative, would render it needful that 
Sethos II. his co-regent, and now sole king of Egypt, 
should visit the Delta. Probably enough it would 
be the first time that he had been in that part of 
his dominions, where his guardians had been su- 
preme for so many years. 

Assuming this very probable circumstance, the 
first thing that would attract the attention of Sethos 
on his arrival in the Delta, would be the utter fail- 
ure of his grandfather's design for the extermina- 
tion of the strangers that sojourned therein. Not- 
withstanding nearly a century of oppression, the 
thousands of Israel swarmed every where, and the 
land was filled with them. 

He would also not fail to observe the great falling 
off in the products of their forced labours which 
had marked the reign of his uncle and co-regent, as 
compared with the works wrung from the Israelites 
by the tyrannies of Ramses his grandfather. The 
crowd of courtiers, flatterers, and needy adventurers 
that always surround a sovereign, would help on 
this impression. They would remind him of the 
leaning of Siphtha towards the liberal policy of the 
Aphophean Pharaohs his ancestors, and of the mild 
gentle character of his queen. The weak humani- 
ties towards Israel, which had characterised their 
reigns, would furnish a constant theme for their 



302 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

banter, and jibe, and ridicule, and the defect in the 
work of Israel, of their indignation. Under the 
pressure of these circumstances the character of 
Sethos II. underwent a very common change. The 
reckless careless profligate, suddenly started forth 
the morose inexorable tyrant. The most stringent 
and cruel orders were issued to the officers over the 
forced labours of the strangers. No mitigation of 
their toils was to be allowed for a moment. Let 
them die under their burdens, — no matter. The 
lash of the taskmaster resounded every where, and 
there was a great cry throughout the land of Egypt. 

" And the children of Israel sighed by reason of 
their bondage, and they cried, 

" And their cry came up unto God by reason of 
their bondage. And God heard their groaning, and 
God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with 
Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the 
children of Israel, and God had respect unto them/' 
Exod. ii. 23—25. 

c • Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father- 
in-law, the priest of Midian : and he led the flock 
to the back-side of the desert, and came to the 
mountain of God, even to Horeb. 

" And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him 
in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush : and 
he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, 
and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 303 

I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why 
the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw 
that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out 
of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. 
And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not 
nigh hither : put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for 
the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. 
Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the 
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob. And Moses hid his face ; for he was afraid 
to look upon God. 

" And the Lord said, I have surely seen the afflic- 
tion of my people which are in Egypt, and have 
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters ; for I 
know their sorrows ; and I am come down to deliver 
them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring 
them up out of that land unto a good land and a 
large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; 
unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, 
and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the 
Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now, therefore, behold, 
the cry of the children of Israel is come unto 
me : and I have also seen the oppression wherewith 
the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, 
and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou may- 
est bring forth my people the children of Israel out 
of Egypt. 

" And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I 



304 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring 
forth the children of Israel out of Egypt ? And he 
said, Certainly I will be with thee ; and this shall 
be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee : When 
thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye 
shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses 
said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the 
children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The " 
God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; and 
they shall say to me, What is his name ? what shall 
I say unto them ? And God said unto Moses, I 
AM THAT I AM : and he said, Thus shalt thou 
say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me 
unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, 
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Je- 
hovah the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent 
me unto you : this is my name for ever, and this is 
my memorial unto all generations. Go, and gather 
the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, Je- 
hovah the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, 
of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I 
have surely visited you, and seen that which is done 
to you in Egypt : and I have said, I will bring you 
up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of 
the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, 
and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebu- 
sites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. 



MOSES IN MIDIAN. 305 

And they shall hearken to thy voice : and thou 
shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the 
king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The Lord 
God of the Hebrews hath met with us : and now 
let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into 
the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord 
our God. 

" And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not 
let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will 
stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my 
wonders which I will do in the midst thereof; and 
after that he will let you go. And I will give this 
people favour in the sight of the Egyptians : and it 
shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go 
empty : but every woman shall borrow of her neigh- 
bour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels 
of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment : and ye 
shall put them upon your sons, and upon your 
daughters ; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians/' 
Exod. iii. 

" And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they 
will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice : 
for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto 
thee. And the Lord said unto him, What is that 
in thine hand ? And he said, A rod. And he said, 
Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the 
ground, and it became a serpent ; and Moses fled 
from before it. And the Lord said unto Moses, Put 

x 



306 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he 
put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a 
rod in his hand : That they may believe that the 
Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the 
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared 
unto thee. 

" And the Lord said furthermore unto him, Put 
now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his 
hand into his bosom : and when he took it out, be- 
hold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, 
Put thy hand into thy bosom again. And he put 
his hand into his bosom again ; and plucked it out 
of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as 
his other flesh, And it shall come to pass, if they 
will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice 
of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of 
the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if they 
will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken 
to thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of 
the river, and pour it upon the dry land : and the 
water which thou takest out of the river shall be- 
come blood upon the dry land. 

" And Moses said unto the Lord, my Lord, I 
am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou 
hast spoken unto thy servant : but I am slow of 
speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said 
unto him, Who hath made man's mouth ? or who 
maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the 



MOSES IX MIDIAX. 307 

blind ? have not I the Lord ? Now therefore go. 
and I tv ill be with thy mouth, and teach thee what 
thou shalt say. And he said, niy Lord, send, I 
pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. 
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against 
Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy 
brother ? I know that he can speak well. And also, 
behold, he cometh forth to meet thee : and when 
he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And 
thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his 
mouth : and I will be with thy mouth, and with 
his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. 
And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people : 
and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of 
a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God. 
And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, where- 
with thou shalt do signs. 

" And Moses went and returned to Jethro his 
father-in-law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray 
thee, and return unto my brethren which are in 
Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And 
Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace. And the Lord 
said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt : 
for all the men are dead which sought thy life. 
And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them 
upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt : 
and Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And 
the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to re- 

x 2 



308 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

turn into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders 
before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand : 
but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let 
the people go. And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, 
Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my 
firstborn. And I say unto thee, Let my son go, 
that he may serve me : and if thou refuse to let him 
go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn/' 
Exod. iv. 1—23. 

The time for the deliverance has come at length. 
The leader is prepared by long discipline for his 
arduous office, and the people that are to follow him 
now cry unto Grod. Forty years before, they had de- 
nounced Moses unto Pharaoh when he smote one of 
their oppressors. In Egypt also, all who in the re- 
motest degree had favoured Israel are dead, and a 
heartless profligate and cruel tyrant wields the 
thong of the taskmaster. All was ready. Then, 
and not till then, God will work. Our impatient 
struggles and cries avail nothing with him while 
our sorrows are working for our benefit : that once 
accomplished, and the fiercest efforts of our enemies 
cannot for a single moment delay our deliverance. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 309 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 



" Akd the Lord said unto Aaron, Go into the 
wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met 
him in the mount of God, and kissed him. 

" And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord 
who had sent him, and all the signs which he had 
commanded him/' Exod. iv. 27, 28. 

The tribe of Levi is now no longer in the low 
estate in which the narrative of the birth of Moses 
displayed it. His adoption by queen Thouoris, and 
the appointment of his mother to nurse him as one 
of the sons of Pharaoh, were distinctions which 
would not fail to be accompanied with large acces- 
sions both of influence and wealth. This would 
give to Amram and the rest of the elders of Levi 
the means of protecting the small remnant of their 
tribe from the tyranny of the Egyptian officers, so 
as to restore them in some measure to their place 



310 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

among their brethren. Aaron the head and first- 
born of Levi, is now a prince in Egypt. He leaves 
the boundaries of the kingdom, he goes into the 
presence of Pharaoh at his pleasure. He could 
have done neither had he not been of high rank. 

The brothers met in Mount Sinai. They will meet 
there hereafter. They returned to Egypt together ; 
each as a prince in his own right ; for the death of 
Pharaoh Siphtha took off his proscription of Moses 
if it had ever been issued. Such was the law of 
Egypt.* 

It had been in humble guise that Moses set out 
from Midian. (See verse 20.) But he went forth 
at God's command, and he bore God's commission : 
and " them that honour Him, He will honour." 

" And Moses and Aaron went and gathered to- 
gether all the elders of the children of Israel. And 
Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had 
spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight 
of the people. And the people believed : and when 
they heard that the Lord had visited the children 
of Israel, and that he had looked upon their afflic- 
tions, then they bowed their heads and worshipped." 
Exodus iv. 29—31. 

Thirty-seven years before, Moses " supposed that 
his brethren would have understood how that God 
by his hand would deliver them, but they under - 

* Rosetta Inscription, Greek lines 12 — 14. 



THE PLAGUES 0E EGYPT. 311 

stood not/' Acts vii. 25. Both Moses and his brethren 
have suffered much during this interval. Both have 
learnt much also. 

" And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and 
told Pharaoh, Thus saith Jehovah the Grod of Israel, 
Let my people go that they may hold a feast unto 
me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is 
Jehovah that I should obey his voice to let Israel 
go ? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel 
go?" Exod. v. 1, 2. 

This was Sethos II. ; and we have here another 
event in his monumental history to relate. It was 
an act of gross and mad impiety to which the monu- 
ments of Egypt have recorded no parallel, in the 
history of any other individual that ever lived there. 
It appears that when the tidings of the death of 
Siphtha reached Thebes, it became the duty of Sethos 
as his co-regent and successor, to visit the valley of 
the kings, for the purpose doubtless of being present 
at certain ceremonies preparatory to the sepulture. 
Here the exquisite beauty of the resting-place of 
his kind and most indulgent relatives Siphtha and 
Thouoris, and the disgraceful contrast to it, pre- 
sented by his own slovenly, unfinished, and neg- 
lected vault, would be strongly impressed upon him. 
The course he adopted would send a thrill of horror 
and disgust through the entire of his subjects, of 
which we can form but a feeble conception. He 



312 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

ordered the names and portraits of his aunt, tc 
whom he owed it that he was king of Egypt, and of 
his uncle, who had carried on the affairs of the 
nation for him, and built temples whereon he had 
inscribed the titles of Sethos to the exclusion of 
himself, to be covered with stucco, and wrote over 
them his own recreant name. It would not have 
been possible to have framed any other act of daring 
wickedness, whereby the higher and better feelings 
of ancient Egypt would have been so grossly out- 
raged. 

The next act of Sethos II. is recorded in the pre- 
sent passage, and is worthy that which went before 
it. The answer of the infatuated king to the mes- 
sage from the God of Israel is exactly that which 
we might have anticipated from the violator of 
the tomb of his benefactors. The tyrant knew not 
his country's gods, for he had despised and neg- 
lected the elementary precept of their religion re- 
garding his own tomb. He knew not the natural 
feelings of affection and respect towards his deceased 
relatives, nor even the still commoner obligation of 
gratitude to the memories of liberal and disinter- 
ested benefactors. Upon these, the very elements 
of all right and reverential feeling in man, he had 
trampled ruthlessly and with mockery. How should 
such a man know the God of Israel, or care to obey 
him? 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 313 

" x\nd they said, The God of the Hebrews hath 
met with us : let us go, we pray thee, three days 
journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto Jehovah 
our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or the 
sword. And the king of Egypt said unto them, 
Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people 
from their works ? Get you unto your burdens. 
And Pharaoh said [to his courtiers], Behold the 
people of the land are many, and ye make them rest 
from their burdens/' Exod. v. 3 — 5. 

The moral identification of the monumental 
Sethos with the Pharaoh of the Exodus, yields in 
perfectness of coincidence to no other in the entire 
history. A reckless, hardened profligate, and im- 
pudent contemner of the commonest convention- 
alities of outward decency, ignorant through the 
wanton neglect of abundant opportunities of learn- 
ing wisdom, and heady, headstrong, boisterous, and 
uncontrollable in the exact measure of his ignor- 
ance, the same individual must have sat for both 
portraits. The man who could perpetrate the 
grossest of all outrages upon the memory of his 
foster-parents before their funeral ceremonies were 
commenced, at the same time petrifying with horror 
the whole kingdom by the blasphemous impiety of 
the act, and this merely to gratify a whim of vanity 
and self-opinion, — this is the king of Egypt we 
should have chosen from the entire list of them for 



314 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the opponent of Moses, even if there had been no 
chronological data to guide us in the selection ! 

The tyrant's address to the Egyptians around 
him, further illustrates the view of the real op- 
pressors of Israel, of which other passages had also 
afforded us the shadow and outline. The kings of 
Egypt, and not the people of Egypt, were the ene- 
mies of Israel. It was to the authorities and great 
officers of the city of Ramses that the sordid and 
brutalized tyrant addressed the last of these objur- 
gations. We could not have had a more convincing 
proof of the correctness of our previous assump- 
tions regarding this matter, than the passage be- 
fore us. 

" And Pharaoh commanded the same day, the 
taskmasters of the people [Egyptians] and their offi- 
cers [Israelites] saying/' — ver. 6. 

This also was addressed to the whole body of the 
executive of the officers over the forced labours of 
Israel, whom he had peremptorily summoned into 
his presence. The Egyptians and the Israelites both 
stand before Pharaoh, and listen to the commands 
of the tyrant. 

u Ye shall no more give the people straw to make 
brick as heretofore : let them go and gather straw 
for themselves. And the tale of the bricks which 
they did make heretofore ye shall lay upon them : 
ye shall not diminish ought thereof; for they be 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 315 

idle, therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacri- 
fice to our God. Let there more work be laid upon 
them, that they may labour therein, and let them 
not regard vain words/' 

" And the taskmasters of the people [Egyptians] 
went out, and their officers, [Israelites] and they 
spake to the people saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, 
I will not give you straw. Go ye, get you straw 
where you can find it : yet not ought of your work 
shall be diminished. 

" So the people were scattered abroad throughout 
all the land of Egypt, to gather stubble instead of 
straw. 

" And the taskmasters were urgent, saying, Ful- 
fil your works, even your daily works, as when 
there was straw. 

" And the officers of the children of Israel, which 
Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were 
beaten, saying, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your 
daily task both yesterday and to-day, as heretofore ? 
Then came the officers of the children of Israel and 
cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou 
thus with thy servants ? There is no straw given 
unto thy servants, and they say unto us, Make brick, 
and behold thy servants are beaten ; but the fault 
is in thine own people. But he said, Ye are idle, 
ye are idle : therefore ye say, Let us go and do 
sacrifice to Jehovah. Go therefore now and work : 



316 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye 
deliver the tale of bricks/' Exod. v. 6 — 18. 

It was on the third day after the delivery of God's 
message that the disgusting scene took place which 
is described at the conclusion of this passage. To 
comment upon ; or to amplify it, would be only to 
weaken its effect. 

That bricks made of Nile mud, held together* 
with chopped straw, have at all times, from the 
beginning until now, been used for building in 
Egypt is well known. It is not equally well known, 
that in the ancient kingdom, bricks made by the 
king's slaves for public works, were all stamped with 
the name of the reigning Pharaoh. Bricks made in 
eighty different reigns were collected in Egypt by 
the Prussian commission. (1843.) 

Another circumstance connected with the brick- 
work of Ancient Egypt is also well worthy of note. 
The temples and palaces of Ramses at Thebes are 
distinguished from those of all the other kings of 
Egypt, by the enormous size of the quadrangular 
precincts that surround them, and by the vast series 
of ruined halls, corridors, and oval cells with which 
they are crowded. All these, together with the 
wall that encloses the precinct, were built of bricks 
of Nile mud, all of them stamped with the name of 
Ramses. Not dwelling upon the strong presumptive 
evidence afforded hereby, that he was the king that 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 31 7 

knew not Joseph, (the proof of that being sufficiently 
clear without it), we find from hence also, that the 
captive Israelites had been from the first principally 
employed upon the unskilled and very debasing 
drudgery of making bricks. There is no violation 
of probability in the supposition, that the works 
now especially in hand, would be such precincts and 
outer buildings for the numerous temples erected by 
the grandfather of Sethos in the Delta ; and that 
by this display of excessive zeal for his own gods, 
and of contempt for the God of the oppressed peo- 
ple, whom his grandfather's subtle treachery had 
made the public slaves, he should endeavour to 
atone to the priesthood for the act of abominable 
impiety he had just committed in the valley of the 
kings, and to appease the justly offended prejudices 
of his Egyptian subjects generally. 

The picture representing Israelite malefactors 
(Levites ? ) at work making bricks in the tomb of 
Rekshare, one of the architects of Thothmosis, is 
moreover highly illustrative of the passage before 
us. We find from it, that the Egyptian as well as 
the Israelite task-masters, were beaten when the 
work failed, and also that they were in that case 
themselves set to work by the superior officers of 
the king. 

The season of the year at which these transac- 
tions took place, appears from the inspired narrative 



318 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

of them. It was shortly after the wheat-harvest, 
and the plains of the Delta were yet covered with 
the long stubble left by the reapers, who in Ancient, 
as in Modern Egypt, cut off the corn close to the 
ear. Instead of being any more supplied with straw 
from the threshing-floors, which was short enough 
to be at once available for mixture with the clay, 
without cutting, the tyrant will compel them to go . 
forth and collect the stubble, and cut it, and yet 
not all diminish the tale of the bricks. The wheat- 
harvest is over in Egypt about the end of April ; at 
the time when the Nile is at the lowest, and the 
hot sand-wind from the Sahara blows incessantly 
across the valley of the Nile for fifty days, render- 
ing it as barren in appearance, and in temperature 
as intolerable as the surrounding deserts. It was 
into this burning atmosphere that the Israelites 
were driven forth to waste their strength and lives 
upon their impossible tasks. 

" And the officers of the children of Israel did 
see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye 
shall not minish ought from your bricks, of your 
daily task. 

" And they met Moses and Aaron who stood in 
the way as they came forth from Pharaoh. And 
they said unto them, Jehovah shall see you, and 
shall judge how ye have made our savour to stink 
in the sight (perception) of Pharaoh, and in the 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 319 

sight of his servants, even to the putting of a sword 
into their hands to slay us. 

"And Moses returned unto Jehovah, and said, 
Lord, why is it that thou hast sent me ? wherefore 
hast thou so evil entreated this people ? For since 
I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath 
done evil to this people, neither hast thou delivered 
thy people at all. 

" Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Now shalt thou 
see what I will do to Pharaoh : for with a strong 
hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand 
shall he drive them out of his land/' Exodus v. 
19—23 ; vi. 1. 

The third day has scarcely yet declined in Egypt 
since the first interview of Moses and Aaron with 
Pharaoh. Yet the faith of Moses, and of all Israel, 
has broken down, because they are not already de- 
livered from their oppressors. Their faith must be 
increased. This is a condition of spiritual gifts, 
inseparable from the religion of Jehovah under all 
its dispensations. 

" And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, 
I am Jehovah. I appeared unto Abraham, and 
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, under [the name of ] 
Elshaddai, but in my name Jehovah, did I not make 
myself known unto them. Yet did I establish my 
covenant with them, to give them the land of Ca- 
naan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they 



320 ISEAEL m EGYPT. 

were strangers. Now also I have heard the groan- 
ing of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians 
keep in bondage, and I have remembered my cove- 
nant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel ; 

" I Jehovah will surely bring you out from under 
the burdens of Egypt. 

" Yea, and I will deliver you from their service. 

" And I will redeem you with a stretched-out. 
arm, and with great judgments. 

" And I will take you to me for a people. 

" And I will be to you for a God. 

" And ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God, 

" Who bringeth you forth from under the burdens 
of Egypt. 

" And I will bring you into the land, 

" Which I lifted up my hand to give it, 

" To Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 

" Now will I give it to you for a possession. Even 
I, Jehovah. 

" And Moses spake unto the children of Israel ; 
but they hearkened not unto Moses, for anguish of 
spirit, and for cruel bondage." Exodus vi. 1 — 9. 

This is a very remarkable passage. The Israelites 
are groaning, bleeding, and dying by hundreds un- 
der the merciless inflictions of the task-masters of 
Pharaoh. Moses, whose message from God had 
been the sole cause, however unintentional, of this 
fearful increase of their sufferings, expostulates with 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 321 

God upon the present distressing effect of his mes- 
sage, so different from that which he, as well as 
Israel, had anticipated. God's answer is addressed 
to the wants, and not to the wishes ; to the faith, 
and not to the sufferings, either of Moses or Israel. 
For the confirmation thereof, he vouchsafes to them 
a two-fold revelation of his own thoughts. 

He assumes to himself a new name. By the name 
Mshaddai, he was known to the whole earth. Egypt 
knew it familiarly, and habitually profaned it by 
applying it to the whole host of her men and women 
gods, dead and alive ! * Jehovah is his new name, 
whereby he will reveal himself to Israel only, and 
to his sons, whether of the flesh or of the faith. 

In His second revelation of himself to Moses, God 
was pleased to repeat and solemnly ratify the Abra- 
hamic blessing and covenant in a prophetic hymn 
or ode. 

God's message of peace was faithfully delivered, 
but the faith of his people was as yet too weak to 
receive it. The spirit of Israel was not attuned to 
the song of Moses. It was " as vinegar upon nitre/' 
to his " heavy heart/' Prov. xxv. 20. 

* ^1W m vS Gr. iravTOKpaTup " God almighty. The hieroglyphic tran- 
scription of this name of God 0^ iri or el-chet 4 ' the doer of all things " 

is a constant epithet in the texts both of the gods and kings of Ancient 
Egypt. It is applied to Ramses the oppressor of Israel on hundreds of 
monuments yet in existence. 

Y 



322 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

" And Jehovah spake unto Moses saying, Go in 
and [command unto] Pharaoh the king of Egypt 
that he send the children of Israel out of his 
land. 

" And Moses spake before Jehovah saying, Be- 
hold the children of Israel have not hearkened unto 
me. How then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of 
uncircumcised lips ? 

" And Jehovah spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, 
and gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, 
and unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the chil- 
dren of Israel out of the land of Egypt/' Verses 10 
—13, 28—30. 

The faith of Moses and Aaron must now undergo 
a yet severer test. With no other defence than the 
promise of God, — with no other weapon than the 
message of God, — they are again to go into the pre- 
sence of the rabid tyrant, and deliver to him the 
words of God as the mandate of a king ! It is not 
easy to conceive of a commission involving more 
imminent personal peril. It was ever thus : they 
whom God designs to do eminent service to his 
cause, must be prepared for it by searching trials of 
their confidence in him. " Without faith it is im- 
possible to please God/' Heb. xi. 6. 

" And Jehovah said unto Moses, Behold I will 
make thee as God unto Pharaoh, and Aaron thy 
brother will I make thy prophet. Thou shalt speak 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 323 

all that I command thee : yea, Aaron thy brother 
shall command Pharaoh to send the children of 
Israel out of his land. 

" But I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multi- 
ply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt, 
Yea Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I 
may lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth mine 
host, even the people of the children of Israel, out 
of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And all 
Egypt shall know that I am Jehovah, when I stretch 
forth my hand over Egypt, and bring forth the 
children of Israel from the midst of you [0 inhabit- 
ants thereof!] 

" And Moses and Aaron did as Jehovah com- 
manded them ; so did they/' Exod, vii. 1 — 6. 

To encourage his servants in the arduous and 
perilous mission on which he sent them forth, God 
was pleased to raise yet higher the veil that hid the 
glorious future from their gaze. Now is faith tri- 
umphant ! They go forth in the name of Jehovah 
and doubt no longer. 

" And Jehovah spake unto Moses [by the way] 
saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, 
Give ye forth a sign, then thou shalt say unto 
Aaron, Take thy staff and cast it before Pharaoh ; 
it shall become a serpent. 

" And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh 5 
and they did so as Jehovah had commanded ; and 

Y 2 



.324 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh, and be- 
fore his servants, and it became a serpent. 

" Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and 
the sorcerers, and the magicians of Egypt. They 
also did in like manner with their enchantments. 
For they cast down every man his staff, and they 
became serpents : but Aaron's staff swallowed up 
their staves. Yet Pharaoh's heart was strong [ob- 
stinate] that he hearkened not unto them, as Jeho- 
vah had said/' Exod. vii. 8 — 13. 

The issue of this their second interview with 
Pharaoh had been foretold. The supernatural 
powers of the false gods of Egypt are called forth 
to assist the delusion of the infatuated monarch. 
It is now happily no longer needful to show the 
reality of the powers possessed by the ministers of 
the Egyptian idolatry, or to combat the ignorant 
illogical assumption that they practised tricks of 
jugglery on this and other similar occasions. Had 
they done so, the miracles of Moses and Aaron were 
the most powerful means of helping forward their 
delusion that could possibly have been devised, and 
the Grod in whose name they performed them, min- 
istered to the sin of the idolatrous priests of Egypt ! 

The epithets and titles of the various orders of 
the Egyptian priesthood are not yet well ascer- 
tained. There are but few students of a vast sub- 
ject, so that the progress of Egyptian archaeology is 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 325 

now necessarily but slow. More than to state that 
they are all Egyptian words written with Hebrew 
characters, we do not, for this reason, enter upon 
their derivation. 

" And Jehovah said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart 
is hardened ; he refuseth to let the people go. Get 
thee unto Pharaoh in the morning ; lo, he goeth 
out unto the water ; and thou shalt stand by the 
river's brink against he come ; and the staff that 
was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thy hand. 
And thou shalt say unto him, Jehovah the Grod of 
the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee to say, Let my 
people go, that they may serve me in the wilder- 
ness : and behold, hitherto thou wouldst not hear. 
Thus saith Jehovah, In this shalt thou know that I 
Jehovah [am Grod]. Behold I [Aaron] will smite 
with the staff in my hand upon the waters in the 
Nile, and they shall be turned to blood. And the 
fish that is in the river shall die, and the Nile shall 
stink, and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the 
water of the Nile. 

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, 
Take thy staff, and stretch out thy hand upon the 
waters of Egypt, upon the canals, mnro, upon the 
branches of the Nile, nV")NV, and upon their pools, 
D2N, and upon all their tanks of water, mpft, that 
they may become blood, and that there may be 
blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in the 
channels of wood and in the channels of stone. 



326 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

" And Moses and Aaron did so as Jehovah com- 
manded, and Aaron lifted up the staff and smote 
the waters that were in the Nile, in the sight of 
Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants ; and all 
the waters that were in the Nile were turned to 
blood. And the fish that was in the Nile died, and 
the Nile stank, and the Egyptians could not drink 
of the water of the Nile. And there was blood - 
throughout all the land of Egypt. 

" And the magicians of Egypt did so with their 
enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened ; 
neither did he hearken unto them, as Jehovah had 
said. Yea, Pharaoh turned and went to his house, 
setting not at all his heart upon the matter. 

" And all Egypt digged on the banks of the Nile 
for water to drink ; for they could not drink the 
water of the Nile/' Exodus vii. 14—24. 

The entire agreement of this passage, with all the 
circumstances and accessories under which we have 
assumed from the analogy of other passages, that 
the event must have occurred, is well worthy of 
note, and very extraordinary. 

Pharaoh Sethos was residing at Ramses, in the 
western Delta. The site of this city is about six 
miles further west than the Bolbatine, or western- 
most mouth of the Nile. (See Map.) This circum- 
stance is clearly intimated in the narrative. Pha- 
raoh would " go out unto the water " on the morn- 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 827 

ing following the last interview. Moses and Aaron 
were to stand by the brink of the Nile against he 
came 

The occasion on which Sethos went in procession 
to the edge of the Nile, surrounded by the civil and 
ecclesiastical authorities of Egypt, must have been 
a stated and a solemn one. The period of the year 
at which the transaction occurred, makes it appa- 
rent that such would actually be the case. The 
yearly overflow had just begun. The river had 
risen considerably. The first change in the appear- 
ance of the waters had already taken place. This 
is called, from the colour they assume, " the Green 
Nile/' It is occasioned by the stagnant pools on 
the plains of Ethiopia, the contents of which are 
propelled into the bed of the river by the rise of the 
flood. The Nile water is then unfit to drink for 
three or four days, and the Egyptians prepare against 
it by storing the water in tanks and pools before its 
commencement. It is just at the time of this phe- 
nomenon (about the middle of June) that the stubble 
is collected into heaps in the wheat-fields, in order 
to burn it. It was the sight of the stubble yet 
abroad that had doubtless suggested to Sethos the 
cruel expedient of withholding straw from the 
Israelite workmen. He designed thereby to save 
this labour to the Egyptians. 

In this state of the river it was the duty of 



328 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Pharaoh in person, and attended by the pomp of a 
religious procession, to inspect the waters, in order 
to decide upon the ceremonies of worship which 
were requisite, and upon the sluices of irrigation 
which were then to be opened. Every thing con- 
nected with the Nile was religion in Ancient Egypt. 
Over every different phase of the overflow a sepa- 
rate god presided : and to open the sluice which 
diverted its sacred waters one day before the pre- 
scription, or to keep it open one day after, were 
both mortal sins in the code of her mythology. On 
such an occasion, and for such a purpose, Sethos 
went down in state to the brink of the Nile, to 
direct the observances which were prescribed by 
religion on the appearance of the next phenomenon 
in the course of the overflow. In this second condi- 
tion of the Nile, the waters are deeply tinged with 
the ferruginous clay of the lower hills and plains 
over which they flow at the commencement of their 
devious course. This change is called from its colour, 
the Red Nile, and on its first appearance the broad 
turbid tide certainly has a startling resemblance to 
a river of blood : we can testify to this fact, having 
seen it. Of this natural occurrence the God of 
Israel was pleased miraculously to avail himself in 
order to rebuke the obduracy of Sethos. The ap- 
pearance became reality when Aaron lifted his staff. 
The red waters of the overflow were changed into 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 329 

that which they seemed to be ; clotted blood, reek- 
ing and rotting in the burning sun of Egypt. The 
plague extended throughout all the branches of the 
Nile, and the canals and channels of irrigation, whe- 
ther of wood or stone. In the reedy pools formed by 
the waste waters on the edge of the desert, in the 
tanks and reservoirs which supplied the garden and 
the city with this indispensable requisite for life 
in Egypt, all was blood. The fish died, the river 
stank, and the Egyptians loathed to drink of its 
water, just at the time when this most delicious 
and refreshing of draughts is in its highest per- 
fection. 

If any doubt had before existed that the scene 
of this terrific display of the power of God was the 
Delta, the phraseology of the present passage must 
have removed it. Nowhere else in Egypt could the 
expressions whereby the several receptacles of the 
waters of the Nile are signified, have been used with 
any propriety. One only of them will require 
special notice. The word we render " Nile/' is 
Egyptian. Heb. nN\ Coptic iaro. Hieroglyphic I] ||| 
This word is never used but of the Nile and its 
natural branches ; so that the expression " Niles/" 
decides the question of the locality definitively. 
There is but one Nile anywhere in Egypt, save in 
the Delta only. 

The haughty tyrant is once more encouraged in 



330 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

his obduracy by the display of the same miraculous 
power in the priesthood of his own idolatry. He 
makes light of God's message, disdains any reply to 
His messengers, and returns in state to his palace 
at Ramses. 

This terrible judgment was confined to the Delta, 
the principal scene of the oppression and sufferings 
of Israel. The fact appears in the circumstance- 
that sweet water was still to be obtained by digging 
in the sand at the banks of the river. This was the 
water of the inundation of the higher parts of the 
valley that filtered through. 

" And seven days were fulfilled after that the 
Lord had smitten the Nile/' Verse 25. 

This is just about the time that would be required 
for the inundation to pass from the head of the 
Delta to the sea. In the course of it, the loathsome 
putrescence rolled onward before the waters of the 
rising flood which restored the Nile to its ordinary 
condition. " In the midst of wrath, Grod remembers 
mercy." 

" And Jehovah spake unto Moses, Gro unto Pha- 
raoh, and speak unto him, Thus saith Jehovah, Let 
my people go, that they may serve me. Else if thou 
refuse to let them go, behold I will smite all thy 
borders with frogs. And the Nile shall bring forth 
frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into 
thine house, and into thy bed-chamber, and upon 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 331 

thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and 
upon thy people, and into their ovens, and into thy 
kneading-troughs, and the frogs shall come up both 
upon thee and upon thy people, and upon all thy 
servants. 

u And Jehovah spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, 
Stretch forth thy hand with thy staff over the 
canals, and over the Niles, and over the pools, that 
the frogs may come up over the land of Egypt. 
And Aaron stretched forth his hand over the wa- 
ters of Egypt ; and the frogs came up and covered 
the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with 
their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the 
land of Egypt. 

" Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and 
said, Intreat Jehovah that he may take away the 
frogs from me and from my people, and I will let 
the people go, that they may do sacrifice to Jeho- 
vah. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Declare to me 
when I shall intreat for thee and for thy people, to 
destroy the frogs from thee and from thy houses, 
that they may remain in the Nile only. And he 
said, To-morrow. And he said, Be it according to 
thy word, that thou mayest know that there is none 
like unto Jehovah our God. For the frogs shall 
depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from 
thy servants, and from thy people. They shall re- 
main in the Nile only. 



332 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

" And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, 
and Moses cried unto Jehovah because of the frogs 
that he had brought against Pharaoh. And Jeho- 
vah did according to the word of Moses ; and the 
frogs died out of the houses, out of the cities, and 
out of the fields. And they gathered them to- 
gether upon heaps, and the land stank. 

" But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, 
he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto 
them, as Jehovah had said/' Exod. viii. 1 — 15. 

This is again the natural appearance next in the 
order of occurrence to the Red Nile, and of it also 
the God of nature availed himself to vindicate his 
power before Pharaoh, and before Egypt. The Nile, 
its branches and the great canals of irrigation are 
all bank-full, and the exuberant moisture has 
aroused from their summer torpor into life and ac- 
tivity the frogs of the Nile, in numbers inconceivable 
to those who have not been in hot countries. Even 
in ordinary years the annoyance of these loathsome 
creatures night and day, gives some idea of what 
this plague must have been, and renders abundantly 
reasonable the creation of a goddess, Ranipula* at 
the very commencement of the mythology of an- 
cient Egypt. In the whole of this fearful succes- 



* " Driver away of frogs." Her name was Heki : Birch ap. Bunsen. 
She was the Buto of the Greek authors. 



THE PLAGUES OE EGYPT. 333 

sion of judgments, there is not one more personally 
revolting than the plague of frogs. 

" And the magicians did so with their enchant- 
ments, and brought up frogs upon the land of 
Egypt/' Probably out of the tanks or impluvia in 
the centre of the open courts round which their 
temples were built. But were there not frogs 
enough upon the land of Egypt already ? "Why 
bring up more ? A more useful display of their 
supernatural attainments would have consisted in 
calling forth the frog-expelling energies of the 
goddess to whom they had entrusted this needful 
office. That would have affected the whole ques- 
tion between Jehovah and the gods of Egypt. The 
power of Moses and the priests both flowed from 
the same source. The ministers of the idols can 
somewhat divert its course, so as to encourage the 
reprobate king in his wickedness, but they can no 
more turn it back upon Him who sent it forth, 
than the loiterer on the sea-beach can roll back the 
rising tide with his staff. 

The frogs are in Pharaoh's palace, in the halls 
and rooms of state, in the offices and secret cham- 
bers, on his table and on his bed. The food of him- 
self and his family is polluted by them. The palace 
rings incessantly with their hideous croakings, 
when undisturbed ; and with their yet more dis- 
cordant shrieks and yells when attacked and in 



334 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

danger. He could laugh at the river running blood, 
for Ramses was on the extreme border of Egypt, 
and water might be had for the supply of the palace 
from the springs in the desert. But now he suffers 
personally. There is no rest night or day. His 
family expostulates, and Pharaoh relents. Jehovah 
hears the prayer of his servant. The frogs die, or 
leave the land for the river. With them the re- . 
lentings of Pharaoh depart also, as Jehovah had said. 

" Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, 
Stretch forth thy staff and smite the dust of the 
land, and it shall become gnats [musquitoes] in all 
the land of Egypt. And he did so, and Aaron lifted 
up his staff, and smote the dust of the land, and it 
became gnats upon man and upon beast, all the dust 
of the land became gnats throughout all the land of 
Egypt. 

" And the magicians did so with their enchant- 
ments to bring forth gnats, but they could not. Yet 
there were gnats upon man and upon beast. Then 
the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger 
of a god. But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and 
he hearkened not unto them, as Jehovah had said/' 
Exod. viii. 16—19. 

The overflow has risen above the level of the 
canals and channels, and is rapidly flowing over the 
entire surface. The fine dust or powder, into which 
the Nile mud of last year's overflow is triturated. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 335 

and with which the fields are entirely covered, now 
presents a very extraordinary phenomenon. Imme- 
diately on its being moistened with the waters, 
gnats and flies innumerable burst from their pupae, 
and spring into perfect existence. The eggs that 
produce them were laid in the retiring waters of 
the former flood. They have matured in the in- 
terval, and they vivify instantaneously that the dust 
has absorbed moisture enough to discolour it. As 
the flood advances slowly onwards, a black line of 
living insects on its extreme verge moves with it, 
The sight of them, and of the birds and fishes that 
prey upon them, is a curious and a wonderful one. 
Once more the God of all the earth avails himself 
of the natural Qvent actually occurring in the course 
of the year in Egypt. Aaron lifts his staff over the 
teeming dust, and the swollen germs of insect life 
that are mingled with it break forth into mosquitoes, 
a fearful pest in Egypt, but principally confined to 
the coast in the present day. 

The priests once more go forth and sing their in- 
cantations and mutter their charms over the dust, 
but the permissive power of the spirits that obeyed 
them is withdrawn, and no musquitoes appear at 
their bidding. The conviction was forced upon 
them which they declared to Pharaoh. The finger 
of the God of Israel was more powerful than all the 
gods of Egypt, However, by the aid of curtains 



336 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

and attendants, the apartments of the palace would 
be kept tolerably free from the buzzing swarms that 
were tormenting his subjects outside. Sethos suf- 
fered but little personal inconvenience, and there- 
fore the expostulations of his own priests were as 
little regarded as those of Moses and Aaron. He 
hardened his heart, and hearkened to neither of 
them, " as Jehovah had said." 

" Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Rise up early 
in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh ; lo, he 
cometh forth to the water ; and say unto him, Thus 
saith Jehovah, Let my people go, that they may 
serve me. Else if thou wilt not let my people go, 
behold I will send swarms upon thee, and upon thy 
people, and upon thy houses ; and the houses of the 
Egyptians shall be full of swarms, and also the land 
around them. 

" And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen 
in which the people dwell, that no swarms shall be 
there ; to the end that thou mayest know that I 
am Jehovah in the midst of the land [of Egypt] ; 
therefore will I put a division between my people 
and thy people. To-morrow shall this sign be. 

" And Jehovah did so, and there came a grievous 
swarm into the house of Pharaoh, and into his ser- 
vants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt ; and 
the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm/' 
Exod. viii. 20—24. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 337 

The overflow being nearly at its height, it seems 
to have been the custom of Egypt, in all ages, for 
the supreme ruler to go forth in solemn procession 
to the brink of the Nile, and there with much cere- 
mony to direct the opening of the sluices at the 
mouths of the great canals ; the occasion being fur- 
ther marked by feasts and rejoicings which last for 
many days. 

Here again also the messenger of Jehovah met 
Pharaoh Sethos. The threatened plague on this 
occasion also, we believe to have been the natural 
phenomenon next in order of occurrence. At this 
period of the overflow, when so much of the country 
is under water, the common flies infest the cities of 
Egypt* to a fearful extent. The attempt to read the 
word, rightly translated " swarms, " (pDV) of some 
blood-fly, is altogether supererogatory, to those who 
have actually experienced the torment of the common 
fly in Egypt, during the overflow, at the present day. 
The plague of flies will take its place as a round in 
the entire climax of the plagues, without the aid of 
any such interpretation. 

Groshen, " the land of flowers," was at first the 
name of a district in the east of the Delta. It was 
there that Israel and his tribe were first located. It 
was also, like Ramses, a name for the whole Delta. 
The Egyptians in the Delta were principally settlers 
brought thither by the Pharaoh of that name. We 

z 



338 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

infer from this passage that they were for the most 
part located in the western portion of it, around the 
city of Ramses. The Israelites still clung to the set- 
tlements of their forefathers, and inhabited Goshen 
and its eastern portions. 

" And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, 
and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. 

" And Moses said, It is not meet so to do : for ■ 
we shall sacrifice the dread [or reverence] of Egypt 
to Jehovah our God : see now, may we sacrifice the 
dread of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will 
they not stone us ? We must go three days' journey 
into the wilderness, to sacrifice to Jehovah our God 
as he shall command us. 

" And Pharaoh said, I will send you forth, and 
ye shall sacrifice to Jehovah your God in the wilder- 
ness, only go not very far away [but] intreat for me. 

" And Moses said, Behold, I go out from thee, 
and I will intreat Jehovah that the swarms may 
depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from 
his people to-morrow : but let not Pharaoh act de- 
ceitfully any more in not sending forth the people 
to sacrifice to Jehovah. 

" And Moses went out from Pharaoh and intreated 
Jehovah. And Jehovah did according to the word 
of Moses, and removed the swarms from Pharaoh, 
from his servants, and from his people. There re- 
mained not one. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 339 

" And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time 
also ; neither would he let the people go/' Exodus 
viii. 25—32. 

No curtains, no precautions, no assiduity on the 
part of attendants can keep out the flies of Egypt. 
They creep in at every crevice, however minute, 
through which the air circulates. It will only be 
by a detail of actual and personal suffering from 
this pest in an ordinary year, that the amount of 
torment they are capable of inflicting will appear to 
those who have not been to Egypt ; and these details 
are too revolting. It may suffice to remark, that 
the suffering from the nausea that ensued when a 
fly was accidentally swallowed, and from the count- 
less swarms of them that settled on every morsel of 
food, the moment it was exposed to them, had 
nearly in one instance issued in loss of life during 
the inundation of 1848. The cause of these fearful 
swarms was, on that occasion, rendered perfectly 
apparent. Not only has a far greater number been 
hatched (as we have already explained), but so 
large a proportion of the whole land being under 
water, their supply of food is greatly diminished by 
the circumstance ; so that they are literally mad 
with hunger, and throw themselves headlong upon 
whatever offers to satiate it. They rush into an 
apartment in which food is set forth like a snow- 
storm, and in spite of all the attendants can do, 

z 2 



340 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

every drinking-vessel is filled with them, and they 
are heaped in huge black masses alive and dead 
upon every dish. Nothing escapes their voracity. 
Bread and fruit are polluted by them just as eagerly 
as animal food. We have described that which we 
saw under the ordinary circumstances of the over- 
flow. What the plague must have been when Je- 
hovah " hissed to the fly " from the entire Delta, 
and settled their noisome swarms upon the narrow 
strip of country around the city of Ramses, we must 
confess our own utter inability to imagine. From 
the inspired narrative before us, we may form some 
judgment of their numbers. They died of hunger 
in such quantities, that their bodies rotted on the 
mud, and corrupted the land. The amount of tor- 
ment they inflicted we also learn from thence. The 
suffering bowed the stiff-neck and smote the stout 
heart of Pharaoh Sethos. 

Oxen, sheep, and goats were all worshipped as 
gods in Egypt. To have offered them in sacrifice 
would have been to have slain the gods of Egypt 
before the eyes of their worshippers. Such would 
evidently have been the impression which such an 
act would have produced. These animals were 
slaughtered in Egypt for food, not for worship. 

Of course Sethos disregarded and laughed at his 
promise, the moment the plague was removed. 
Doubtless he still laid the flattering unction to his 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 341 

soul, that Jehovah was after all like his own idols, 
only a little more powerful. The enchanters are 
already beaten. Moses will yield after this or ano- 
ther trial, and then Sethos will be master of the 
field. 

" Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Go in unto 
Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith Jehovah the 
god of the Hebrews, Send forth my people, that they 
may serve me ; for if thou refuse to send them forth, 
and holdest them still, Behold the hand of Jehovah 
is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the 
horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the 
oxen and upon the sheep, even a very grievous mur 
rain. And Jehovah shall sever between the cattle 
of Israel and the cattle of Egypt. There shall no- 
thing die of all that is the children's of Israel. 

cc And Jehovah appointed a set time, saying, To- 
morrow shall Jehovah do this thing in the land. 
And Jehovah did that thing on the morrow, for all 
the cattle of Egypt died ; but of the cattle of the 
children of Israel died not one. And Pharaoh sent, 
and behold, there had died not one of the cattle of 
Israel. 

" Yet the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and 
he would not send the people forth." Exodus ix. 
1—7. 

From those marvellous treasure-houses of ancient 
knowledge, the tombs of Egypt, we have the perfect 



342 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



illustration of this plague, and of the natural causes 
of which, in the unity of this his dispensation, the 
Grod of nature was again pleased to avail himself. 
The inundation had advanced considerably, and the 
pastures of the Delta were now under water. This 
was an anxious time for the herdsmen of Egypt. 
The cattle were penned for the night in mounds 
above the level of the water. In the day-time they 
were driven forth before the herdsmen into the 
higher parts of the fields, where the water permitted 
them to browse upon the young shoots of the lentils 
that were sprouting abundantly in the fertile mud 
below. The herdsmen, some in papyrus rafts, 
others wading or swimming, were in constant and 
anxious attendance upon them, to keep them out 
of the deep water, and to protect them from the 
crocodiles. 




The cattle of Egypt were also at this season in 
requisition for an agricultural purpose of great im- 
portance in the tillage of the land. The seeds of 
many species of lentils, vetches, and other similar 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 



343 



plants, were scattered upon tlie surface of the water 
at the beginning of the inundation, and trodden in by 
the cattle, great and small, so as to secure them in 
the mud, that they might not be washed away by the 
retreating waters. This was accomplished by inces- 
santly driving them through the plashy mud, back- 
wards and forwards, by men armed with heavy whips. 




The cattle suffered greatly from these operations, 
so contrary to their ordinary habits. This circum- 
stance is most significantly represented in these 
ancient reliefs. In the same plane, with cattle in 
the water, are also diseased cattle, tended by skilled 
herdsmen who are administering medicine to them. 




344 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

This picture we believe to be thus associated with 
cattle in the water in every tomb in which it is 
repeated. 

These were, so to speak, the suggestive circum- 
stances of the present plague. In the administra- 
tion of it, however, a character more decidedly 
miraculous and discriminative was imparted to it 
than to any of the former plagues. The murrain 
seizes the camels and horses of Pharaoh and his 
princes in the desert, as well as their cattle in 
Egypt. Yet the cattle of Israel, intermixed with 
the cattle of Egypt, breathing the same air, browz- 
ing the same marshes, are miraculously free from 
the ordinary unhealthiness of the season. All the 
cattle of Egypt died of the murrain ; but of the 
cattle of Israel there died not one. Sethos sent and 
ascertained this wonderful fact. Yet he went on 
still in his wickedness : he refused to let the people 
go. The cattle of Egypt were all dead. He will 
seize upon the cattle of Israel. This was, doubtless, 
the suggestion that Satan put into his heart. 

" Then Jehovah said unto Moses and unto Aaron, 
Take to you handfuls of ashes of the burning,* and 
let Moses sprinkle it towards heaven in the sight of 
Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all 

* )t?M " conflagration," " tract of country on fire." See Genesis 
xix.28; Exodus xix. 18, which are the only other places in the Bible 
where this word occurs. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 345 

the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth 
with blains upon man and upon beast, throughout 
all the land of Egypt. And they took ashes of the 
burning and stood before Pharaoh ; and Moses 
sprinkled it up toward heaven ; and it became a 
boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon 
beast. 

" And the magicians could not stand before Moses 
because of the boils ; for the boil was upon the 
magicians, and upon all Egypt. 

" And Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh, 
and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had 
spoken unto Moses/' Exodus ix. 8 — 12. 

Again in strict analogy to the actual succession 
of the phenomena of the yearly overflow in Egypt, 
Jehovah selects the next occurrence in the course 
of it for the instrument of his vengeance upon Pha- 
raoh. The inundation has touched its highest point, 
aud the last great work of the husbandman is now 
being performed. The stubble and the weeds of the 
low lands have all been carefully gathered off and 
collected upon the highest mounds, which at the 
present time are out of the reach of the overflow, 
and to be watered with the shadoof or balance- 
bucket. Here they are set on fire and burnt to 
ashes. The custom seems to be universal in Egypt 
at the present day. The cotemporary monuments 
are our unerring authority for stating in addition 



346 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

that it prevailed also in Ancient Egypt, Every 
occupation in agriculture being associated with 
religion, it was celebrated there in a high and 
solemn festival, lasting probably for some days, the 
first day of the feast being named ^j[^ rkh*-na-hb 
— " the feast of the greater burning ; " and the last 
day, ^^^ : rkh-tsb-hb— ic the feast of the lesser 
burning/' These names are of very frequent occur- * 
rence. They seem to indicate that the heaps were 
frequently fired in order to insure their entire de- 
struction. There is the same superstitious notion 
in Egypt at the present day. The peasants are 
very particular in burning up the whole. 

The highest land in Egypt now is that on the 
brink of the river, and it is there that the burning 
takes place. It is a strange but beautiful sight in 
the thick darkness of an Egyptian night, to see the 
river as far as both horizons rolling along between 
two broad belts of fire. It is a yet stranger sight 
in the day-time, when the smoke and ashes of these 
conflagrations drive in whirls and eddies over the 
land before the rude blasts of the Elesian wind. It 
was gazing at this sight, and seeing the clothes of 
all present covered with the light and feathery par- 
ticles of the ashes, that it first occurred to us, that 
this was the agent of God's vengeance in the plague 
of boils ; though we did not then understand that 

* Coptic, " to burn." 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 347 

all the preceding plagues had in like manner been 
produced through the agencies of the successive 
phenomena of the overflow. It seemed to us then, 
and it still seems to us, to solve entirely a great 
difficulty connected with this miracle, according to 
the common interpretation of the passage. Fuel is 
scarce in Egypt, and in consequence fire for all pur- 
poses is used in the smallest possible quantity, and 
for the shortest possible time. This peculiarity in 
the present customs of Egypt we find from the 
paintings on the tombs to have always prevailed 
there. The fires used both for cooking and the arts 
were very inconsiderable. Under these circum- 
stances it is hard to understand how a handful or 
two of ashes thrown up from one furnace could be 
diffused over an entire district to " become boils 
breaking forth with Mains upon man and beast/' 
But the difficulty vanishes altogether when we find 
that it was the season for consuming the weeds and 
field-refuse of all Egypt, and that the white ashes 
of their burning was drifting in clouds before the 
north wind, which at this time blows very fiercely. 
Sethos appears to have been engaged in some 
public pomp, prescribed for the observance of this 
festival of the burnings, when Moses and Aaron 
denounced and inflicted upon Egypt the plague of 
boils. The magicians, or priests, suffered severely 
from it, so much so that the ceremonial was proba- 



348 ISRAEL m EGYPT. 

bly interrupted thereby ; but the inspired narrative 
leaves us to infer that Pharaoh was not personally 
inconvenienced by it. The fans of his attendants 
at the time, and the cares of the guardian of the 
king's apartments in the palace would accomplish 
this without difficulty. The whole process of the 
burning lasts but for a few days. The plague passed 
away with that which Jehovah had miraculously ' 
constituted the cause of it, and Pharaoh once more 
despised the chastening of the Almighty. 

" Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Rise up early 
in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say 
unto him, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Abraham, 
Send forth my people, that they may serve me. For 
yet once again I send forth all my strokes [blows] 
upon thy heart, [self] and upon thy servants, and 
upon thy people ; that thou mayest know that there 
is none like me in all the earth. For now again I 
stretch forth my hand to smite thee and thy people 
with plague ; then thou shalt be cut off from the 
earth/' Exod. ix. 13—16. 

The terms of this passage seems to imply the 
lapse of some time after the occurrence of the events 
narrated in that which precedes it. Such we shall 
find by the passage that next follows to have been 
actually the case. The condition of Israel during 
this interval, we gather from the same kind of 
occasional notices of it. The direct pressure of the 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 349 

bondage had certainly ceased. It is never men- 
tioned after the first plague. The overflow alone 
would render the cessation of all great public works 
of construction in Egypt a measure of necessity. 
The gangs of forced labourers would on this occa- 
sion return home to Goshen from the distant scenes 
of their sufferings ; and the six fearful miracles of 
judgment which God had displayed on their behalf 
before the eyes of all Egypt, would present a per- 
fectly effectual bar to the attempt on the part of 
any one to reimpose their burdens upon them. Even 
had Pharaoh been capable of such audacious 
wickedness (of which there is no evidence) his sub- 
jects would not have dared to have executed his 
decrees. The question between Moses and Sethos 
was now simply that of the departure out of Egypt. 
The sufferings of the captivity were at an end. 

Another equally important consideration is sug- 
gested by this passage. Jehovah does not conde- 
scend to Pharaoh. He hath a controversy with the 
gods of Egypt. The king of Egypt he leaves to 
Moses his servant. This was a style of interna- 
tional communication well known in Egypt in those 
days. To the treaty of the 21st of Ramses, which 
had enslaved Israel, the high contracting parties 
were Amun and Ptha, and Ra, (or the sun) for 
Egypt ; and Ashtar and Ashtoreth for Moab. It is 
in the conflict with this confederacy that Jehovah 



350 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

now brandishes his glittering sword. Who is 
Pharaoh ? " Even a man that is a worm, and the 
son of man that is a worm ! " 

" And thou (Pharaoh) shalt be cut off from the 
earth. For in very deed for this have I raised thee 
up, to show in thee my power, and that my name 
may be declared in all the earth/' Ver. 15, 16. 

" What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteous- - 
ness with God? God forbid. For he saith to 
Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have 
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will 
have compassion. So then it is not of him that 
willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that 
showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto 
Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised 
thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and 
that my name might be declared throughout all the 
earth. Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will, 
and whom he will he hardeneth." Rom. ix. 14 — 18. 

We give this text with its inspired commentary 
without at all entering upon the mysterious question 
which the Divine author of both addresses to the 
faith, and not to the understanding of man. The 
only remark upon the passage that is incumbent 
upon us, we make with regret. For the sake of 
chronological convenience it has been assumed by 
some writers, that after all, Pharaoh did not perish 
in this conflict with Jehovah, but survived for many 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 351 

years the departure of Israel, and the destruction 
of his army. If this really is the case, the history 
before us is a fable, and the inspired comment we 
have just quoted a mistake. Such defences are 
mere subterfuges, deeply injurious to the cause they 
are intended to serve. 

" As yet exaltest thou (Pharaoh) thyself against 
my people, that thou wilt not send them forth ? 
Behold 3 to-morrow about this time, I will cause it 
to rain a very grievous hail, such as there hath not 
been in Egypt from the foundation thereof even 
until now. Send therefore now, gather thy cattle 
and all that thou hast in the field. Every man and 
beast which shall be found in the field and not 
brought home, the hail shall come down upon them 
and they shall die. He that feared the word of 
Jehovah among the servants of Pharaoh made his 
servants and his cattle flee into the houses. And 
he that regarded not the word of Jehovah left his 
servantsand his cattle in the fields. 

" Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch forth 
thine hand toward heaven, that there may be hail 
in all the land of Egypt, upon man and upon beast, 
and upon every herb of the field throughout the 
land of Egypt. And Moses stretched forth his staiF 
toward heaven : and Jehovah sent thunder and 
hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground, and 
Jehovah rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So 



352 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very 
grievous, such as there had been none like it in all 
the land of Egypt since it became a nation. 

" And the hail smote throughout all the land of 
Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast ; 
and the hail smote every herb of the field, and 
brake every tree of the field. Only in the land of 
Groshen, where the children of Israel were, was there 
no hail." Ver. 17—26. 

It is here again our painful duty to have to notice 
another of the mistakes into which the Christian 
commentators upon this history have fallen. Be- 
tween the months of November and February, rain 
and hail are not uncommon in the Delta and Middle 
Egypt. They are most frequently accompanied by 
thunder and lightning; and the storms are very 
violent, though not of long continuance. Here 
again then, God created no new thing in the earth, 
as has been assumed in ignorance of the facts. He 
merely displayed his mastery over the occurring 
phenomena of the season. 

The preface to the narrative of this plague implies, 
as we have explained, a longer interval of time be- 
tween it and the plague that preceded it, than had 
been interposed between the previous plagues : so 
that the entire visitation seems here to separate 
into two sections. 

An interval, then, has evidently elapsed. We 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 353 

will endeavour very shortly to estimate this interval 
more precisely. The overflow had attained its 
height and gradually subsided, leaving throughout 
Egypt successive flats of intense fertility, ready for 
the labours of the husbandman. In the earlier 
days of this interval, the prevalence of the waters 
would prevent the progress of all great works of 
construction in Egypt. Afterwards, all Egypt would 
be abroad in the field and at work ; so that there 
would be neither time nor men for building tem- 
ples, and the forced labours of Israel would at this 
season cease of necessity in good measure. 

Sethos appears to have left the Delta for some 
other part of his dominions at this time. Israel, in 
his absence, had collected in Goshen around the 
princes of the several tribes, and withdrawn them- 
selves from their previous intermixture with the 
Egyptians. This appears in the progress of the nar- 
rative. Doubtless these movements took place at 
the command of Jehovah, and under the direction 
of Moses and Aaron. 

The labours of the field being now ended, Sethos 
has returned to the Delta. Probably enough, in 
doing so, it had been in his heart and purpose, if 
not in his counsels, to reimpose the burdens upon 
Israel. 

" And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and 
Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this 

2 A 



354 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

time. Jehovah is righteous, and I and my people 
are wicked. It is enough. Intreat Jehovah that 
there be no more voices of the gods (thunder) and 
hail : and I will send you forth, and ye shall stay 
no longer. 

" And Moses said unto him, As soon as I am 
gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands 
unto Jehovah, and the thunder shall cease, neither 
shall there be any more hail : that thou mayest 
know that the land [of Egypt] is Jehovah's. But 
as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will 
not yet fear the Lord Jehovah. 

" And the flax and the barley was smitten : for 
the barley was in the ear, and the flax was boiled ; 
but the wheat and the spelt* were not smitten, for 
they were not grown up. 

" And Moses went out of the city (Ramses) from 
Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands unto Jeho- 
vah : and the thunders and the hail ceased, and the 
rain was not poured upon the earth. 

" And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the 
hail and the thunders ceased, he sinned yet more 
and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Yea 
the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would 
he let the children of Israel go, as Jehovah had 
spoken by Moses." Exod. ix. 27 — 35. 

It is quite clear from this passage that Pharaoh 

* J1DD3 " short awmed or beardless wheat." 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 355 

and his councillors had from the first well under- 
stood the strictly religious nature of the conflict 
in which they were engaged, and betaken them- 
selves to the gods of Egypt for aid against the Grod 
of Israel. They had deemed (according to the doc- 
trine of local gods which prevailed universally in 
the ancient world) that it was a war between the 
divine protectors of the two races ; that the powers 
of the combatants were at the least evenly ba- 
lanced, and that they had only to persevere, and the 
victory might yet be with the gods of Egypt. It was 
to expose the utter futility of these vain imagina- 
tions that Jehovah was pleased to effect his own 
purpose through the agencies of the several phe- 
nomena of the Egyptian year in the cycle of their 
ordinary occurrence, converting each in succession 
into a fearful plague. For these were the divine 
attributes with which the fables of their mythology 
had invested the dead men and women whom they 
worshipped as gods. In the instance now before 
us the ritual of the gods of fire (the Eumenides, or 
avenging gods) had been exhausted. Earnest 
prayers, gorgeous processions, and costly sacrifices 
had been offered in vain. The voice of a greater 
than the idols still pealed through the heavens. 
The lightnings of a mightier than they still flashed 
in the eyes of their votaries, and ran along the 
ground diffusing blight and ruin, and the hail and 

2 A 2 



356 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

rain continued hour after hour, yea, for successive 
days, breaking the trees, beating down the growing 
herbs into the mud, and destroying the hopes of the 
gardens and the fields of Egypt. " Only in Goshen 
where were the children of Israel was there no 
hail/' The God of Israel then is contending with 
the gods of Egypt, and the latter are utterly im- 
potent before him to help either themselves or their 
votaries. No fabling of the priests, no enchant- 
ments of the magicians can veil the truth from the 
eyes of all Egypt. It was in this dilemma that 
Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron,- and enacted a 
brief scene of penitence before them. Most vain 
mockery ! Moses was prescient of Pharaoh's hy- 
pocrisy, but he was the minister of the God that 
delighteth in mercy. For the sake, not of Pharaoh, 
but of his subjects, the plague passes away and the 
scene changes. Pharaoh and his councillors once 
more defy the God of Israel. 

The barley is in the ear, and the flax boiled in 
Egypt at the present day, about the end of Decem- 
ber and the beginning of January. This makes the 
interval between the plague of boils and the plague 
of hail about five months. Such a period would 
seem to be implied by the tenor of the narrative. 
All the varieties of wheat now cultivated in Egypt 
are sown after the barley, when the land is much 
drier, and are not carried until late in April. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 357 

Whereas the barley - harvest is in February and 
March. This was also the case in Ancient Egypt, 
for at the time of the plague of hail the wheat was 
not grown up. 

" Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Go ye unto 
Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, and the 
heart of his servants, that I might shew these my 
signs before him : 

" Yea, that thou may est tell in the ears of thy 
son, and of thy son's son, what things I have 
wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done 
among them ; that ye may know how that I am 
Jehovah/' Exod. x. 1, 2. 

After so fearful a display of the omnipotence of 
Jehovah as the plague of hail, it is not in the na- 
ture of man that Sethos and his councillors should 
immediately on its cessation determine to disobey 
the command, to enforce which it had been so ex- 
pressly sent. Some weeks would doubtless first be 
spent in parley, and equivocating with Moses and 
Aaron. The fear of a return of the plague must be 
removed to a safe distance, before the decision 
which was in their hearts would be uttered by their 
lips. The children of Israel in this interval would 
complete the assembling of themselves in Goshen, 
and be busily occupied with preparations for de- 
parture. It was on the day that Pharaoh pro- 
nounced his decision, and before Moses went to the 



358 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

king's palace to hear it, that he received the mes- 
sage from God in the text before us. The patience 
with which the thousands of Israel had waited 
hither to the time of their Divine deliverer, instead 
of bursting their bonds at once with a strong arm, 
as was fully in their power, now drew from the 
heart of Grod this most gracious revelation of his 
purpose in the delay. 

In this interval a scene of exquisite beauty has 
developed itself in the Delta. The rain and the 
hail which had somewhat interfered with its first 
disclosure are over and gone. The voice of the 
turtle-dove is heard in every bush and tree, amid 
fresh springing leaves and sweet blossoms. At times 
the north wind awakes, cool and refreshing ; at 
other times the south wind blows, soft and balmy. 
Before both, the beans, the pease, the lupins, the 
vetches, the lentils, the endless variety of plants of 
this order that cover the plains of the Delta, all in 
full blossom, and all sweet scented, roll in green 
undulations, interchanged with more gorgeous tints, 
and shake forth their spicy odours, copious as the 
blue and sparkling river that slowly meanders in 
the sunshine, and grateful to the senses as the 
draughts of its delicious waters to him who first 
reaches its brink from the thirsty desert. There is 
not in nature any thing more charming ! There is 
not on the wide world a spot that can advance a 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 359 

stronger claim to its ancient epithet ; Goshen, 
" the land of flowers/' 

" And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh 
and said unto him, Thus saith Jehovah the God of 
the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble 
thyself before me ? Send forth my people, that they 
may serve me. Else, if thou refuse to send forth 
my people, behold to-morrow will I bring the locusts 
within thy borders. And they shall cover the face 
of the land, so that one cannot be able to see the 
land : and they shall eat the residue of that which 
is escaped, which remaineth to you from the hail, 
and shall eat eYery tree which groweth for you out 
of the field. And they shall fill thy palaces, and 
the palaces of thy [servants, attendants,] princes, 
yea the habitations of all Egypt, such as neither thy 
fathers have seen nor thy fathers' fathers, since the 
day that they were upon the earth unto this day. 
Then he [Moses] turned away and went forth from 
Pharaoh. 

" Then said Pharaoh's princes unto him. How 
long shall this man be a snare unto us ? Send the 
men forth to serve Jehovah their God ! Knowest 
thou not that already Egypt is destroyed ? 

" Then Moses and Aaron were ordered to return 
unto Pharaoh, ? and he said to them, Go serve Jeho- 
vah your God. "Who are they that will go? And 
Moses said, We will go with our young and with 



360 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

our old, with our sons and with our daughters : yea, 
w^e will go with our flocks and with our herds ; for 
we must hold the feast of Jehovah. 

" And he [Pharaoh] said unto them, Will Jeho- 
vah be thus with you (as hitherto) when I shall 
have sent you forth and your little ones. Take 
heed lest evil be before you. It will not be so ; 
[therefore] ye that are men go forth and serve Je- 
hovah ; for that ye have asked of me. Then they 
were dismissed from the presence of Pharaoh/' 
Exodus x, 3 — 11. 

The stout hearts of Pharaoh and his princes melt 
within them at the mention of the locusts. They 
will no longer contend with the mighty arm that is 
stretched out against them. Moses and Aaron are 
recalled to the council-chamber, and the conditions 
of the departure of Israel are demanded. Moses 
answers in the spirit of prophecy. The royal re- 
joinder is highly characteristic, and places the mind 
and heart of Sethos in an aspect at least as revolting 
as any that the monumental and historical notices 
of it in our possession had set before us. Now that 
his power is gone, the tyrant turns hypocrite. He 
takes an affectionate interest in the women and 
children of the tribe he has enslaved and oppressed. 
They will never be equal to the fatigues and dangers 
of the desert. The men may go, but these must 
remain behind, lest they perish in the wilderness. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 361 

This is Pharaoh's decision. He does not wait for 
any rejoinder, but at once closes the interview. As 
if the God of Israel could be mocked with this stale 
device ! As if " the eyes of Jehovah, that run to 
and fro throughout the whole earth/' (2 Chron. xvi. 
.9,) could not see through the flimsy veil of this 
pretext ! 

" Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Stretch out thine 
hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that 
they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat 
every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath 
left. And Moses stretched forth his staff over the 
land of Egypt, and Jehovah brought an east wind 
over the land all that day and all that night. When 
it was morning the east wind brought the locusts. 
And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, 
and rested in all the borders of Egypt in exceeding 
multitudes. Before them were there no such swarms 
(of locusts) as they, neither after them shall be such. 
For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that 
the land was darkened ; and they did eat every herb 
of the land, and ail the trees which the hail had 
left : and there remained not any green thing on 
the trees or on the herbs of the field, through all 
the land of Egypt/' Exodus x. 12 —15. 

There is but one brief season of the Egyptian 
year during which a descent of locusts there would 
be possible, and that is the few weeks next following 



362 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the cold (and in the Delta rainy) month, which cor- 
responds to the winter of less-favoured climates. 
At all other times of the year, a flight of locusts 
would only alight in Egypt to die of hunger or be 
drowned. They would find the land covered with 
the straws of ripe corn and herbs, which are not 
the food of the locust, or as barren as the desert, or 
under water, But for this short spring-tide, the- 
entire surface is covered with luxuriant vegetation. 
It is a striking coincidence that the view of the 
plagues which has been forced upon us by the con- 
sideration of the preceding ones, requires the plague 
of locusts to occur in exactly this place in the Egyp- 
tian calendar. 

To one who has seen the locust at work, and also 
past through the green beauties of the Delta at this 
season, the idea of this plague is most appalling. 
The pen of inspiration alone can describe the ra- 
vages of this awful pest : 

" A day of darkness and gloominess,* 

A day of clouds and thick darkness. 

As the morning light on the tops of the moun- 
tains 

Comes a great people and a strong. 

There hath not ever been the like, 

Neither shall there be any more after it 

To the years of many generations. 

* The locusts darken the day in their flight. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 363 

A fire devoureth before them, 

Behind them a flame burnetii. 

As the garden of Eden is the land before them, 

And behind them as the desolate wilderness, 

For truly nothing can escape them. 

The appearance of them was the appearance of 

horses.* 
As trained horses, so do they bound f 
As the noise of chariots over the [rugged] tops of 

mountains, they take wing, j 
Yea, as the roar of fire that devoureth stubble, 
As [clash the arms of] warriors in battle array. 
At the sight of them the people are in anguish ; 
All faces gather blackness. 
They rush forward like mighty men, 
They climb the wall like men of war, 
They march every one on his way, 
They break not their ranks, 
Neither does one thrust another, 
They go on every one on his path,§ 
And where the weapon alights it wounds them 

not. || 

* The head of the locust bears considerable resemblance to that of a 
horse. 

+ The locust leaps like the grasshopper. It moves by a succession of 
bounds, strongly resembling the gallop of a fleet horse. 

X This description of the deafening buzz and clatter with which a 
flight of locusts takes wing is wonderfully true to nature. 

§ These peculiarities of a descent of locusts is well known. 
II The locust is so extremely agile that it is very difficult to kill it. 



364 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

They run to and fro in the city, 

They mount upon the wall ; 

They climb up upon the houses, 

They steal in at the windows like a thief/' 

Joelii. 2— 9.* 

To comment upon this sublime and most faithful 
description of a flight of locusts would be to weaken 
its effect. 

" Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in 
haste : and he said, I have sinned against Jehovah 
your God, and against you : now therefore, forgive, 
I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat Je- 
hovah your Grod, that he may take away from me 
this death only. 

" And he went forth and entreated Jehovah. 
And Jehovah turned a mighty strong west wind, 
which took away the locusts, and cast them into 
the Red Sea : there remained not one locust in all 
the borders of Egypt/' Exodus x. 16 — 19. 

This act of penitence had been performed before, 
but not under circumstances of equal urgency. The 
Delta is a dreary plain of black Nile mud, as barren 
as the desert, and the locusts having consumed every 
green thing, are commencing their ravages upon the 

* The flight of locusts in this passage is used metaphorically for the 
Assyrian invasion of Palestine. The figure was suggested by the actual 
occurrence of the pest at the time of the delivery of the prophecy. (See 
c. i. v. 4.) 



THE PLAGUES OP EGYPT. 865 

bark of the fruit-trees. The humiliation of Sethos 
is as abject as the occasion is urgent. He rolls in 
the dust. He confesses his sin against Moses and 
Aaron, as well as against Jehovah ; he humbly begs 
pardon of both. He asks for the intercession of 
Moses with Grod in terms of distressing meanness. 

For his people's sake the hypocritical prayers of 
Sethos were heard once more. The west wind arose ; 
the parched wind of the desert. The locusts were 
driven like the sand before its rude fitful gusts, to 
perish in the Red Sea. Their work was done. They 
had come to Egypt on the east wind from Syria and 
Palestine. It was the ordinary course and season 
of their migration. They were on their way to the 
parts about Cyrene, to lay waste the gardens of 
Carthage, to ravage the vineyards and olive-yards 
of Mauritania as far as the pillars of Hercules, 
when the call of their Creator arrested their flight, 
and his finger pointed to the land of Egypt. 

Once more a few weeks elapsed, during which 
the Israelites proceeded with their preparations to 
depart, no man hindering them ; while Pharaoh 
parleyed and equivocated with Moses and Aaron. 
At length all fear of the return of the locusts was 
at an end. The clover and other leguminous herbs, 
that had been eaten down, would begin to spring 
again. Something might even then be done to save 
Egypt, but it must be by means of irrigation and 



366 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the labour of man. Never before had the Israelite 
slaves been wanted in Egypt as at that moment. 
In a mind constituted like that of Sethos, motives 
as selfish and as sordid as these would doubtless 
preponderate in his final decision. 

" But Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that 
he would not send forth the children of Israel/' 
ver. 20. 

The divine judgments marched majestically on- 
wards, utterly regardless of Sethos, his paroxysms 
of rage, or his collapses of meanness. But one 
being remains, and then Jehovah will have con- 
tended with and conquered every thing that is 
called God, or that is worshiped in Egypt. Over 
the river and the land, with all that inhabit them, 
over " the air, the flood, the flame/' he has already 
asserted his absolute unbounded sovereignty. They 
have bowed to his behests, and done his command- 
ments in the eyes of all Egypt. But the sun, the 
father-god of the whole mythology, the dread pro- 
tector of the oldest and most venerated of the cities 
of Egypt, still shines serene in heaven, untouched 
by the wonders which the God of Israel has wrought. 
Is not he then also a god as well as Jehovah ? The 
question soon receives an answer. 

16 Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch out 
thine hand toward heaven, that there may be dark- 
ness over the land of Egypt, even darkness that 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 367 

may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand 
towards heaven, and there was a thick darkness in 
all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one 
another, neither rose any from his place for three 
days. 

" Yet had all the children of Israel light in their 
dwellings/' ver. 21—23. 

The sun then is the minister of Jehovah as abso- 
lutely as the rest of the elements of nature. He 
listens as implicitly to the voice of His word, and 
gives or withholds his light at His bidding as obe- 
diently as they. 

Once more the agent of this fearful judgment is 
the occurring event of the season. No one who has 
been in Egypt to experience it, will doubt for a 
moment the agency whereby Jehovah wrought. 
The plague of darkness was a sand-storm. It is 
impossible for words to describe this fearful visita- 
tion more accurately, than the passage before us. 

In ordinary years the wheat would have ripened 
and the harvest have been gathered in the warm 
sunny month that had elapsed, since the last display 
of the power of God. In this disastrous year there 
was no harvest to gather. About the middle of 
April a west wind sets in strongly, and continues 
to blow from that quarter for about fifty days. It 
is named by the Arabs in Egypt hamseen,* from 

* * Fifty." Arabic. 



368 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

this circumstance. During the whole season of the 
prevalence of this wind, the atmosphere is exces- 
sively dry, and loaded with the fine particles of the 
sand of the Sahara, — to the great discomfort of the 
inhabitants of Egypt. But occasionally the west 
wind suddenly freshens to a perfect hurricane, and 
sweeping before it the light sands of the desert, 
precipitates them in columns and drifts upon the . 
valley of the Nile. The sufferings of man and beast 
during these dreadful storms, in ordinary years, 
baffle description. No man leaves his dwelling, for 
to face a violent gust would be certain death by 
suffocation. They who are overtaken by them, 
wrap their faces in their mantles, and lie prostrate 
on the ground. It is their only chance of life. The 
light of noon-day is but a red angry twilight. At 
intervals, though brief ones, it is obscured, and the 
darkness is total while the heavy drifts pass the 
sun's disc. We testify that we have seen, on this 
point. It is impossible by any expedient to keep 
the sand out of the houses. So saturated is the 
air with the sand, that it seems to lose its transpa- 
rency, so that artificial light is of little service. The 
sand also gets into the eyes, producing ophthalmia ; 
so that men " see not one another." 

We have described the sand-storm of an ordinary 
year, which seldom lasts more than a few hours. 
When the storm raged incessantly for three days, 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 369 

the amount of suffering, of disease and death among 
the aged, the weak, and the young of the subjects 
of Pharaoh, we are unable in any way to estimate. 
We speak from personal endurance, when we say, 
that for intense and universal misery the plague of 
darkness would far surpass all that went before it, 
and that as it was the last, so was it also the most 
fearful, of the plagues which Jehovah inflicted on 
Egypt through the agency of the powers of nature. 

The locusts had eaten every green thing through- 
out all Egypt. The children of Israel did not need 
the rising crops that they destroyed, but they were 
protected by the power of their God from the horrors 
of the sand-storm. The west wind threw down its 
heavy burden of sand over Ramses. The children 
of Israel, in Goshen to the eastward, had light in 
their dwellings, and suffered comparatively but little 
inconvenience otherwise. Such partial exemptions 
sometimes occur in sand-storms at the present day. 

" Then Pharaoh called for Moses, and said, Go 
ye, serve Jehovah^ only let your flocks and herds re- 
main ; your little ones also shall go with you. 

" But Moses said, Thou shalt also give up into 
our hands sacrifices and burnt-offerings, that we 
may do sacrifice unto Jehovah our God. Our cattle 
also shall go with us, there shall not a hoof be left 
behind ; for thereof must we take to serve Jehovah 

2 B 



370 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

our God ; yet know we not with what we must serve 
Jehovah until we come thither. 

" Then Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, that 
he would not send them forth/' Exodus x. 24 — 29. 

The sordid meanness of motive, whereby this 
wretched monarch had been actuated throughout, is 
at length stripped of its last covering, and comes 
forth in its naked deformity. 

The cycle of the year in Egypt is now complete. 
It is just twelve months since Moses first stood be- 
fore Pharaoh. In the course of it the God of Moses 
has wielded the nine prominent occurrences in its 
several seasons to scourge therewith the contumacy 
of Pharaoh and his princes. 

" But Jehovah had said unto Moses, Pharaoh 
shall not hearken unto you, that my wonders may 
be multiplied in the land of Egypt. So Moses and 
Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh ; but 
Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would 
not send the children of Israel forth from the land/' 
Exod. xi. 9, 10. 

Some displacements and omissions have occurred 
in the Hebrew of the text that continues the nar- 
rative. The sense of the passage readily adjusts 
the displacements. The Samaritan transcription of 
the Pentateuch supplies the omissions. 

u Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Yet will I bring 
one plague upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt ; then 



THE PLAGUES 0E EGYPT. 371 

will he send you forth from hence altogether, yea, 
he will thrust you forth with violence. Speak now 
in the ears of the people, that every man ask of his 
neighbour, and every woman ask of her neighbour, 
vessels [objects] of silver and vessels of gold. For 
I Jehovah do give the people favour in the sight of 
the Egyptians, so that they shall give them what 
they ask. 

" For about midnight I will go forth into the 
midst of the land of Egypt, and every firstborn in 
the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of 
Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne even unto the 
firstborn of the maid-servant that is behind the 
mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. And there 
shall be a great cry throughout all the land of 
Egypt, such as there has been none like it, nor shall 
be like it any more. But against any of the chil- 
dren of Israel there shall not a dog move his tongue, 
against man or beast ; that thou mayest know that 
Jehovah doth put a difference between Egypt and 
Israel. Thou also shalt be very great in the eyes of 
Pharaoh's princes and in the eyes of his people. 

" Then Moses [went in unto] Pharaoh, and said 
unto him. Thus saith Jehovah, 

u Israel is my son, even my firstborn ; 

" And I said unto thee, Send my son forth that 
he may serve me. 

" But thou hast refused to send him forth : there- 

2 B 2 



372 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

fore, behold, Jehovah slayeth thy son, even thy first- 
born. 

" Therefore thus saith Jehovah, About midnight 
I will go forth into the midst of Egypt, and all the 
firstborn of the land of Egypt shall die, from the 
firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth on the throne even 
unto the firstborn of the maid-servant that is behind 
the mill, and all the firstborn of beasts. 

" And there shall be a great cry throughout all 
the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it 
nor shall be like it any more ; that ye [Pharaoh 
and his princes] may know how that Jehovah doth 
put a difference between Egypt and Israel. And 
all these thy princes shall come down unto me, and 
bow themselves unto me, and say, Go forth, and all 
thy people that is at thy feet. Then will I go forth." 
Exodus xi. Sam. 

There is no space for repentance now. Moses, as 
the prophet of God, denounces the wrath of God 
upon Pharaoh and his guilty councillors. The ma- 
jestic bearing of the messenger and the tone of his 
message rouse the haughty despot to a transport of 
uncontroulable fury, in which he altogether forgets 
the fearful purport of it. 

" Then Pharaoh said unto him (Moses), Get thee 
from me ; take heed to thyself, see my face no 
more : for in the day thou seest my face thou shalt 
die. 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 373 

" And Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will 
see thy face again no more. So he went out from 
Pharaoh [who was] in the heat of wrath/' Exod. 
x. 28, 29 ; xi. 8. 

Now is the long-suffering of God exhausted. Pha- 
raoh is given over to desperate folly. He defies the 
God who had desolated his land, and decimated his 
people already. He drives from his presence with 
execrations and insults, the prophet who had nine 
times denounced the divine judgments upon him, 
and whose threats in every instance had been 
strictly verified. 

For twelve months the children of Israel have 
been occupied in assembling themselves in the east- 
ern Delta, and in preparations for their departure. 
Now all is ready. In that very day when their last 
act of faith in the word of Jehovah was accom- 
plished, came forth the command to their first act 
of obedience. 

" And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in 
the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto 
you the beginning of months : it shall be the first 
month of the year to you. 

" Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, 
saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall 
take to them every man a lamb, according to the 
house of their fathers, a lamb for an house : and if 
the household be too little for the lamb, let him and 



374 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

his neighbour next unto his house take it according 
to the number of the souls ; every man according to 
his eating shall make your count for the lamb. 
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the 
first year ; ye shall take it out from the sheep, or 
from the goats : and ye shall keep it up until the 
fourteenth day of the same month : and the whole 
assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it 
in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, 
and strike it on the two side-posts and on the upper 
door-post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. 
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast 
with fire, and unleavened bread ; and with bitter 
herbs they shall eat it* Eat not of it raw, nor sod- 
den at all with water, but roast with fire ; his head 
with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. 
And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the 
morning ; and that which remaineth of it until the 
morning, ye shall burn with fire. 

" And thus shall ye eat it ; with your loins girded, 
your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand ; 
and ye shall eat it in haste : it is the Lord's pass- 
over. For I will pass through the land of Egypt 
this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the 
land of Egypt, both man and beast ; and against all 
the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment : I am 
the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a 
token upon the houses where ye are • and when I 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 375 

see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague 
shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite 
the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you 
for a memorial , and ye shall keep it a feast to the 
Lord throughout your generations ; ye shall keep it 
a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven days shall 
ye eat unleavened bread ; even the first day ye shall 
put away leaven out of your houses : for whosoever 
eateth leavened bread from the first day until the 
seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. 
And in the first day there shall be an holy convo- 
cation, and in the seventh day there shall be an 
holy convocation to you ; no manner of work shall 
be done in them, save that which every man must 
eat, that only may be done of you. And ye shall 
observe the feast of unleavened bread ; for in this 
selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the 
land of Egypt : therefore shall ye observe this day 
in your generations by an ordinance for ever. 

" In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the 
month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until 
the one-and-twentieth day of the month at even. 
Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your 
houses : for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, 
even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation 
of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the 
land. Ye shall eat nothing leavened ; in all your 
habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread. 



376 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

" Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, 
and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb 
according to your families, and kill the passover. 
And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in 
the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel 
and the two side-posts with the blood that is in the 
basin ; and none of you shall go out at the door of 
his house until the morning. For the Lord will 
pass through to smite the Egyptians ; and when he 
seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side- 
posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not 
suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to 
smite you. And ye shall observe this thing for an 
ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. And it 
shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land 
which the Lord will give you, according as he hath 
promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it 
shall come to pass, when your children shall say 
unto you, What mean ye by this service ? that ye 
shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, 
who passed over the houses of the children jof Israel 
in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and deli- 
vered our houses. And the people bowed the head 
and worshipped. And the children of Israel went 
away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses 
and Aaron, so did they/' Exod. xii. 1 — 28. 

It was on the tenth day of the month that Moses, 
going forth from his final interview with Pharaoh, 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 377 

assembled all the elders and princes of the people, 
and instituted the passover. The institution itself, 
the types thereof and their deep significance, need, 
thank God, no amplification of ours to the English 
reader. 

In this his last great work in the land of Egypt, 
God will wield the common elements of the material 
world no longer. The angel of his presence is coming 
forth to do his pleasure. This judgment shall sur- 
pass all that have gone before it, as in severity, so 
also in close and strict discrimination. Every stroke 
shall be guided by intelligence ; every victim shall 
be a selected one. God's dealings with Israel on 
this occasion undergo a change as strongly marked 
as the occasion itself. The strength of his faith is 
to be tested by the observance of a new prescription. 
An act of domestic worship, suited in all its details 
to their present position, as sojourners in a land that 
was not theirs, is instituted for a yearly feast, to 
serve for a memorial of that which Jehovah is about 
to do, throughout all future generations. The pas- 
chal lamb was to be selected, as on this day, by 
every family in Israel, and to be fed apart from the 
flock until the day of the judgment ; when its 
slaughter, and the sprinkling of its blood on the 
door-posts, would not only commemorate the deli- 
verance from Egypt, but be for a sign to the de- 
stroying angel to pass over the habitations of Israel, 



378 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



and also for a sign unto Israel of a truth elementary 
to all God's dealings with sin in man ; — " without 
shedding of blood there is no remission/' 

That the twelve months which had elapsed since 
Moses first appeared in Egypt with the divine com- 
mand to Israel to depart, had been diligently em- 
ployed by them in making all needful preparations 
for so great an event, there cannot be a doubt. It 
is equally certain that the divine wisdom would be 
with Moses and the princes of Israel in all the de- 
tailed arrangements for the harmonious and orderly 
march of the host of Jehovah. What these details 
were, we are not informed ; and the narrative of the 
following events affords but little insight into them. 
It seems, however, certain, that the Israelites had 
now altogether left the cities of the Delta, and lived 
in tents, depasturing their flocks on its fertile 
plains. We may with probability suppose the 
general arrangement to have been, that the heads 
of each tribe were encamped in the vicinity of 
different cities in the Delta, and that the indivi- 
dual members of each pitched their tents around 
them. These cities appear to have lain on, or 
very near, the line of their march, and to have ex- 
tended across the entire Delta. The princes of all 
the tribes, with Moses and Aaron, were at Ramses, 
on the western bank of the Bolbatine branch of the 
Nile, in attendance upon Pharaoh. The thousands 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 379 

of Israel lay encamped in a broad belt extending 
from thence to the eastern desert, a distance of more 
than seventy miles. 

The sun of the last day of the sojourn of Israel in 
Egypt had set. It was the fourth day after the in- 
terview with Moses. Pharaoh, his princes, and the 
priests of his idols would doubtless take courage 
from this unwonted delay. Jehovah and his minis- 
ter are beaten at length, for now the gods of Egypt 
prevail against them. The triumph would be cele- 
brated in pomps and sacrifices, in feasts and dances. 
Nothing is more likely than that the banquet-halls 
of Pharaoh at Ramses were blazing with lamps, 
and that he and his princes were pouring forth 
libations of wine to their gods, and concerting 
schemes amid their revelry, for the perpetuation of 
the thraldom of Israel. 

The paschal lamb was slain that night in all the 
tents of Israel. The sprinkled blood was yet moist 
on the door-posts of every habitation. Their flocks 
and herds were ruminating in the pens, their little 
ones were sleeping in the tents, and the men of 
Israel, having partaken of the mystical feast, stood 
awe-struck and silent, listening for the footsteps 
of the coming God. 

a And it came to pass that at midnight Jehovah 
smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from 
the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on the throne, 



380 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

unto the first-born of the captive that was in the 
dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle. Then 
Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his princes, 
and all Egypt. And there was a great cry in Egypt, 
for there was not a house where there was not one 
dead/' Exod. xii. 29, 30. 

Pharaoh Sethos started from his couch that 
night, yelling in fierce and bitter agony, and gnaw- 
ing at the sharp arrow that was rankling in his 
vitals, like a wounded lion. His son, his first-born, 
his only son, just arrived at man's estate, just 
crowned king of Egypt, and associated with his 
father in the cares of sovereignty, writhed before 
him in mortal throes, and died. His transports of 
grief were re-echoed, and with no feigned voice, by 
the princes, the councillors, and the priests that 
partook of his revelry. Each one rends his gar- 
ments and clasps to his bosom the quivering corpse 
of his first-born son. On that fearful night " there 
was a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt/' 
but if we have rightly read its history, the loudest, 
wildest wail of remorseful anguish would arise from 
Pharaoh's banquet hall ! 

The name and brief history of the first-born of 
Sethos are recorded in the valley of the tombs of the 
kings. The tomb numbered 11 by Sir Gr. Wilkin- 
son, was commenced by him on a scale of great 
magnificence, and his name was inscribed over the 



THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 381 

entrance, and once on each wall of the inclined 
corridor. /^\ But the work ended when it had 

Mm 

scarcely = advanced beyond the external sur- 
face of the ^2 cliff. Probably the absence of Se- 
thos from the Delta in the interval between the 
sixth and seventh plagues had been occasioned by 
the coronation of this ill-fated youth, whose 
memory, like that of his father, was afterwards 
made infamous in Egypt. His name on the tomb 
was covered over by his successor long afterwards, 
who completed the excavation, making it one of the 
largest and most magnificent vaults in the entire 
valley.* 

" Then he (Pharaoh) cried (sent) to Moses and 
Aaron by night, saying, Arise ! go forth from the 
midst of my people, both ye and the children of 
Israel, and go serve Jehovah as ye have said. Also 
take your flocks, and your herds, as ye have said, 
and be gone, and bless me also. Egypt also was 
urgent upon the people, and hasted to send them 
forth, for they (the Egyptians) said, We be all dead 
men/' Ver. 31— 33. 

Thus was the Exodus of Israel accomplished. It 
was extorted from the haughty despot of a proud, 
prosperous, and most superstitious nation, in the 
fulness of his power and surrounded by the splen- 
dours of his court. For twelve months together he 

* It is the well known Harpers 1 tomo of Bruce. 



382 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

had resisted the command of Jehovah, and called 
forth to the conflict the gods of Egypt. He and 
they were foiled in every rencontre, and his obsti- 
nacy did but fulfil the purpose of his omnipotent 
enemy. It was now impossible to conceal from the 
Egyptians that Jehovah was Grod in Egypt as well 
as the God of Israel, and that their gods were no 
gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands, 
lying fables, the devices of men's hearts ; for the 
very deified elements of nature they ignorantly 
worshipped, Jehovah had wielded as the scourges 
wherewith to chastise their contumacy and folly. 



THE EXODUS. 383 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE EXODUS. 



" Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, 
wherein they dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and 
thirty years. For it came to pass at the end of the 
four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same 
day it came to pass, that all the hosts of Jehovah 
set out from the land of Egypt. This is a night of 
observances for the children of Israel throughout 
their generations/' Exod. xii. 40 — 42. 

We follow here again the rule we have already 
prescribed to ourselves, in forbearing all discussion 
as to the duration of the sojourn. 

In the passage that next follows we also restore 
the natural arrangement of the sentences. 

" xind the people took their dough before it was 
leavened, the remnant being bound up in their 
cloaks on their shoulders. And they baked un- 
leavened cakes with the dough which they brought 
out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they 



384 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

were thrust out of Egypt and could not tarry, no not 
even to bake themselves bread/' Exod. xii. 34, 39. 

The fact here recorded was perpetually comme- 
morated in the observances of the Passover. It 
conveys in the East the strongest possible impres- 
sion of the haste with which Israel went forth from 
Egypt. Even under the most cruel tyranny of 
Mohammed Ali, the boatmen on the Nile can de- 
mand of those that engage them, a time at stated 
intervals to bake their bread. For journeys in the 
desert it is important to have the bread baked as 
near as possible to the commencement of the journey. 

Such is the custom to this day in Egypt. It was 
this preparative only for their journey through the 
wilderness which Israel had not time to make. All 
other things were ready. Our authorized version, 
which was made when oriental customs were little 
known in Europe, conveys a somewhat erroneous 
impression on this point. 

" And the children of Israel did according to the 
word of Moses, and they demanded of the Egyptians 
objects of silver, and objects of gold, and raiment. 
And Jehovah gave the people favour in the eyes of 
the Egyptians, so that they yielded to their de- 
mands. Thus they spoiled Egypt/' Ver. 35, 36. 

The ancient versions have misled our English 
translators in this passage. To borrow with no in- 
tention of repayment is to steal ; but such was not 



THE EXODUS. 385 

the command of Jehovah to Israel. The original word 
has no such meaning. The children of Israel had 
been for nearly a century bond-slaves to the princes 
and nobles of Egypt. At the command of Jehovah 
they now demanded the hire, b&W, of these their 
services, and through his favour they obtained it, 
on the condition of their instant departure. Our 
modern neologian commentators are at no pains to 
correct palpable mistakes like these : while on the 
other hand, they are never weary of finding out and 
inventing readings which give absurd or grotesque 
imports to the sacred text. 

Thus the hosts of Jehovah went forth from Egypt 
as conquerors, bearing the spoil thereof. 

" And all the children of Israel did so: as Je- 
hovah had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did 
they : and it came to pass on that very day that 
Jehovah led forth the children of Israel out of the 
land of Egypt by their hosts/' Ver. 50, 51. 

The expression " by their hosts/' [or (l armies/ 3 
msn2] is a remarkable one, which brings out 
clearly the view we had already taken of the as- 
sembling of the Israelites in the Delta before their 
final departure. They collected in twelve divisions, 
each of which was stationed round the city in which 
the prince of the tribe dwelt, and " had his pos- 
sessions." Gren. xlvii. 27. The sale of these 
possessions would entitle the Israelites to a very 

2 c 



386 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

large amount of the wealth with which they went 
out from Egypt. 

" Then the children of Israel journeyed from 
Ramses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on 
foot that were men, besides children/' Ver. 37. 

There are few passages in the Bible upon which 
more has been written than this. It is melancholy 
to have to add that there are still fewer regarding 
which, notwithstanding, less is really known. The 
two cities mentioned in it remain in Egypt to this 
day, and still retain their ancient names. Succoth 
moreover lies due east from Ramses, which is ex- 
actly the direction in which the Israelites must 
have journeyed on their way frofti thence to the 
desert of Sinai. Ramses, as we have already ex- 
plained, was the city built by the Israelites at the 
command of Pharaoh of that name, and was situated 
on the extreme western border of the Delta where 
the settlements of the Egyptians were. The modern 
name of Succoth ^'^D is in Arabic Sakha, in Coptic 
Schoou. Its ancient name was written in hiero- 
glyphics § N V^ sichos* which the Greeks trans- 
cribed Um$, Xois. That facts so palpable as these, 
and at the same time of such paramount importance 
to the illustration of the sacred text before us, 
should nevertheless have entirely escaped the notice 

* s for th. The German Jews pronounce the letter J") th, s, at the pre- 
sent day. 



THE EXODUS. 387 

of all commentators ancient and modern, is a cir- 
cumstance concerning which we cannot refrain from 
the expression of our unfeigned astonishment. Xois, 
as we have^seen, became the capital of the shepherd- 
kings after they had lost Memphis. The first grand 
preparatory movement therefore of the Exodus, was 
the departure of Moses and Aaron, with the rest of 
the princes of Israel, from the court of Pharaoh at 
Ramses, to Xois, the old capital of the Delta. 

The name of the city of Xois, or Succoth, which 
is Hebrew, and signifies " tents/' shows it to have 
been built by the Israelite or Canaanite settlers in 
the Delta. In all probability it had been the resi- 
dence of one of the princes of the tribes ; so that 
here the comparatively small company that had left 
Ramses, consisting only of the little tribe of Levi, 
acting as guards or attendants upon the princes, 
were joined by one of the great sections of the host 
of Israel. Among the conquests of Sethos I. re- 
corded at Karnak is a city of the Delta named 
Manasseh, #2| which doubtless had been built by 
the prince 1^| of this tribe of Israel. It appears 
from hence ^"^ that Israel had voluntarily built 
cities in Egypt before the captivity. 

The number of the children of Israel at the time 

of the Exodus is another of those vexed questions, 

with which, in the order of our design, it is now 

incumbent on us to deal fully and faithfully. 

2 c 2 



388 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

The vague reckoning of about 600,000 footmen or 
infantry of the text, appears by the two exact cen- 
suses taken in the first and thirty-ninth years that 
followed the Exodus, to have been justly calculated. 
The census of the first year makes the fighting men 
of Israel to amount to 603,550 (Numbers i. 1 — 44 ) 
The same class in the enumeration at the end of 
the wanderings in the Desert, amounts to 601,730 
(Numbers xxvi. 51.) The individuals enrolled in 
this class were men only, and between the ages of 
twenty and sixty. All below this limit were ac- 
counted lads (lb'O and infants. All the men be- 
yond it took their places among the elders of Israel, 
and were no longer liable to military service in the 
field. The censuses being in fact those of the armies 
of Israel, — the whole of the women, as well as the 
old men and children, are left out of them : so that 
the number of which the host of Israel consisted at 
the Exodus is a question in statistics. An easy 
reckoning gives us 4,000,000 as the lowest possible 
approximation to the sum of the entire host that 
left Egypt at the Exodus. The probability is that 
it was much greater. We make this statement with 
the full consciousness of the smile of sarcastic pity 
with which it will be received by the modern phi- 
losophical writers who have condescended to this 
our subject. If in our calculations of the rate of 
the increase of Israel in Egypt, we followed their 



THE EXODUS. 389 

example in working with factors derived from the 
tables of the latest census of London, or Paris, or 
Berlin, it is indeed " difficult to imagine how 70 or 
75 persons can have become 4,000,000 and upwards 
in this period/' to adopt their considerate phrase- 
ology ; but we humbly submit that these their 
factors have nothing whatever to do with the ques- 
tion ; inasmuch as the circumstances of society 
which govern the census were entirely different at 
the two epochs. The age of puberty was the same 
then as now, but the expectation of life was greater 
by at least 40 years. This would of course swell 
the ancient census. Polygamy and concubinage 
also prevailed among the Israelites, not as moral 
offences, but as sanctioned and established prac- 
tices of society : the offspring of such connexions 
taking their assigned places in the father's house- 
hold, and being enrolled in the family records as 
his lawful descendants. Whether their prevalence 
had, or had not, in the times when they had the 
divine sanction, the tendency to multiply the spe- 
cies, we have no means of knowing. They now 
only exist on the earth as disgraceful crimes. Of 
this, however, there can be no doubt. They would 
inevitably tend to the rapid increase of a thriving 
prosperous race of people among whom they pre- 
vailed, and at the expense of all the less prosperous 
races with which they were in contact. These were 



oVO ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

exactly the circumstances under which Israel had 
sojourned in Egypt. The men of Israel grew rich 
in possessions. According to the universal prac- 
tice of the ancient world, they would, on this ac- 
count, seek to increase and extend also their influ- 
ence and the number of their descendants. They 
took to them wives abundantly, both from among 
the Egyptians and Canaanites. In consequence, 
the men of these races must of necessity intermarry 
with the Israelitish women, when there seems to 
have been no impediment to their admission into 
the tribes of Israel in the right of their wives. 
The inevitable effect of this process would be that 
Israel would increase far beyond the natural order 
of reproduction, while Egypt and Canaan would 
correspondingly decrease. The prevalence of this 
custom among the Israelites in Egypt is demon- 
strated by the divine prohibition and regulation 
of it shortly after the Exodus. Deut. vii. 2, 3, 
xvii. 10, seq., &c. Had the custom not existed, 
the law regarding it would never have been enacted. 
The consequence we have forestalled is expressly 
said to have taken place by Pharaoh Ramses, in 
his counsel with the princes of Egypt for the en- 
slaving of Israel. " See ! the people of the chil- 
dren of Israel are more and mightier than we." 
Exodus i. 9. Israel in Egypt outnumbered the 
Egyptians themselves. 



THE EXODUS. 391 

As this question is to be dealt with in a pre- 
eminently wide and extended sense, in order to 
meet the dignified spirit of high philosophy which 
now assails the Scripture account of it, we state 
further upon this point, that such is the inevitable 
consequence at all times, of this close contiguity 
with intermarriage between any two races of man- 
kind. The one absorbs the other. Xo half-caste 
or mulatto race is perpetuated ; but the peculiarities 
of the veaker race gradually disappear, merging in 
those of the stronger. This is the case even with 
the European and the African negro, the two op- 
posite pole; of the varieties of man. It is pre- 
eminently sc with all the intermediate races. One 
familiar instance will illustrate this. 

Less than 4U) years ago, the Portuguese settled 
in great numbes in the south-western portions of 
the island of Ctylon. They have exercised consi- 
derable influence here. A patois of their language 
is still spoken throigh the entire district, and the 
names of nine-tenth of the inhabitants are Portu- 
guese. Yet the race is extinct. There is not a trace 
of the European form or feature left in the purest 
and loftiest of the families of their descendants. 
The Dutch followel them about 200 years after- 
wards, whei many settlers from Holland occupied 
the same cistrict. Tuey likewise are just on the 
verge of extinction. The personal appearance of 



392 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

the descendants of both is in nothing distinguish- 
able from that of the Cingalese. 

In the case of Israel in Egypt the assimilation 
would be far more rapid and decided than in this ; 
owing partly, to the greater resemblance between 
the two amalgamating races, and still more, to the 
prevalence of polygamy among the Israelites. The 
circumstance that Joseph was a ruler and a prJnce, 
would give very great advantages to the first immi- 
grants, which were certainly continued during the 
seventy years that he survived that even* : nor is 
there any evidence that they were afterwards with- 
drawn before the times of Ramses. £he events 
that we know to have befallen the shepherd king- 
dom during this its final epoch, would on the other 
hand, be highly favorable to the inc'ease of Israel. 
The losses it sustained on its soutbrn and western 
frontiers, which were mainly inhabited by Egyp- 
tians, would render the Israelites still more pre- 
ponderant in the state, and ircrease their oppor- 
tunities of aggrandizement. We found on the 
monuments, evidence of the power of Israel in the 
Delta at the time of its annexation to the Theban 
kingdom, so strong as to suggest, that jealousy of it, 
and apprehension of its consequences, might have 
induced the guardians of the fnfant Siphtha to call 
in the assistance of Ramses. His couisel on the 
occasion, which is recorded in Scripture, (Exod. i. 



THE EXODUS. S93 

9,) plainly hints at such a motive. The design of 
the policy recommended by him and adopted, though 
not successfully, was the repression of the numbers 
of Israel. 

These considerations, we submit, combine with 
the analogy of the similar instances we have cited, 
to remove all improbability from the Mosaic account 
of the numbers of Israel at the Exodus, even if, in 
obedience to the canon of modern philosophy, we 
choose to forget Grod in the matter, and to view it 
as altogether the result of natural causes. That the 
great increase of the Israelites was the effect of 
God's blessing, is nevertheless very distinctly stated 
in this account, which has now stood unflinchingly 
the test of so long and close an examination, that we 
do not hesitate to express our conviction of its truth, 
notwithstanding the derision which our avowal is 
sure to elicit from its philosophic assailants. 

Through God's blessing, then, upon the universal 
laws of human increase, the seventy or seventy-five 
persons composing the clan of Jacob who had immi- 
grated into Egypt, were represented by more than 
600,000 fighting men, and at least four millions of 
souls, all lineally descended from them, when Israel 
had been in Egypt four hundred and thirty years. 

" Also a great mixture [of people] went out with 
them : and flocks and herds, even very much cattle/' 
Exod. xii. 38. 



394 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

The word in the original of this place is the name 
common to all the nomade tribes of the desert of 
Sinai. The distinctions of race which were so 
strictly observed among the men of these very 
remote times, seem to have been neglected by them, 
probably through the necessities of their manner of 
life, in the rugged and barren district over which 
they wandered as merchants, with the products of' 
the adjacent countries. For this reason they were 
very. early named yiV Arab, "the mixed people ;*■' 
and they retain the name to this day. These were 
the hired servants and bond-slaves of the Israelites. 
They were of both sexes. They were Egyptians, 
Canaanites, and Cushites, — some, prisoners of war, 
others malefactors, but all purchased in Egypt, and 
accompanying their masters as part of their pro- 
perty. It is in vain to attempt any conjecture as 
to their number. The passage, as well as the na- 
ture of the case, leave us to infer that it must have 
been considerable. 

It is evident from hence that the number in the 
preceding sentence must be taken with its accom- 
panying limitation in the strictest possible sense. 
The 600,000 fighting men were all the lineal de- 
scendants of Israel. Their servants and camp-fol- 
lowers are not included in it, as some commentators 
are disposed to imagine. 

The Exodus was the last of the great movements 



THE EXODUS. 395 

among the primitive families of man to which the 
first impulse had been given on the plains of Shinar, 
more than ] 500 years before. It admits of no com- 
parison with the subsequent emigrations of man- 
kind, by whatsoever motive they may have been 
influenced. It is with those earlier and vaster 
movements, when, impelled by the judgments of 
God, and guided by the hand of God, men went 
forth from one common centre by nations together, 
to people the districts which the divine sovereignty 
had assigned to them, that the comparison must be 
instituted, if the parallel is to be either just or re- 
levant. 

Pharaoh Ramses made no mistake in his calcula- 
tion of the increase of Israel. They far out-num- 
bered his own people. The population of all Egypt 
at no time exceeded eight millions. In this stu- 
pendous display of the sovereignty of Jehovah over 
the destinies of mankind, more than five millions 
left its borders in one host, never to return ! 

" It is a night of observances unto Jehovah who 
brought them forth out of the land of Egypt. Yea 
this is the night of Jehovah to be observed of the 
children of Israel throughout many generations/' 
Exodus xii. 42. 

" Then Moses said unto the people, Remember 
this day in which ye came out from Egypt, out of 
the house of bondage : for by strength of arm doth 



396 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Jehovah bring you out from hence. There shall be 
no leavened bread eaten this day when ye came out 
in the month Abib." Exod. xiii. 3, 4. 

We had before been informed that the Exodus 
took place on the 14th day of the month, or moon. 
The name of the month is here specified for the 
first time. It is the eleventh month of the Egyp- 
tian calendar, which is written in the Coptic texts,- 
Ephip. The Arabic transcription of the name used 
in Egypt at this day is identical with the He- 
brew of the place before us, n*ON. The Israelites in 
Egypt used of course the Egyptian calendar, which 
only differed from that of Noah and the patriarchs 
in giving names to the months, instead of merely 
enumerating them. The month was thirty days, 
and the year twelve months, in both. This division 
of time corresponds with the actual phenomena, 
neither of the moon nor of the sun. The moon re- 
volves round the earth twelve times in 354 days. 
The earth moves once round the sun in 365^ days. 
A year of 360 days agrees with neither. The con- 
sequence would be that the year in both countries 
was vague. It did not agree with the seasons. The 
Nile would very rarely overflow in the month in 
the Egyptian calendar marked for that event. The 
moon and the almanack would in like manner be 
constantly at variance. The mode of restoring the 
agreement seems to us to have been at the time 



THE EXODUS. 397 

now before us the same in both countries. A whole 
moon was occasionally added at the end of the year 
— the Veadar -nwi of the later Hebrews. We have 
already stated that, according to the Greek chrono- 
logers, a much more exact and systematic mode of 
effecting this was invented by the Shepherd kings. 
If such were really the case, it was too intricate for 
general practice, for there is not a particle of monu- 
mental evidence for its application at this epoch. 
We do not make the statement unadvisedly, or 
without having given the best attention in our 
power to all that has been advanced in support of 
the opposite opinion, especially by Dr. Lepsius.* 

* Einleitung, pp. 123 — 245. — A wonderful display of learning, but a 
very forced and inconclusive argument. If we rightly understand the 
author's reasoning, it proceeds upon a mistake. According to the Greek 
authorities which he follows, the year in Egypt began on the day that 
the dog-star rose heliacally, that is, exactly at sun rise. But if the hiero- 
glyphic calendar is to be regarded as authority, the year began on the 
first day after the entire subsidence of the river, that is, about the end of 
November ; and at this time the dogstar rises cosmically in Egypt, that 
is, exactly at sun set. It is however very doubtful to us, that the dogstar 
had anything to do with the matter. The Sothic cycles and other periods 
of the Alexandrian astronomers of the second and third centuries after 
Christ, are all evidently back-reckonings. If Sothis (or the dogstar), 
had any connection with the beginning of the Egyptian year, it was regu- 
lated by his cosmical rising, which is by much the easier to observe ; but 
if this was the case, at the time of the Alexandrian astronomers, the 
calendar had gone so long unadjusted by the epact, that the first day of 
the year had receded to his heliacal rising, or thereabouts ; and without 
any regard to the hieroglyphic names of the months, the philosophers 
have assumed this to have been the original observation. Strange as this 



398 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Abib was made the beginning of months, throw- 
ing hereby the Hebrew year two months in advance 
of the Egyptian year, by express command, (see 
above) The other names of the Egyptian months 
were not adopted by the Israelites, nor indeed was 
the name Abib, except in connexion with the pass- 
over ; — the reason for its adoption is perfectly 
obvious. The passover was the feast of celebration - 
of the deliverance from Egypt. Equally obvious is 
the reason why the Israelites rejected it in any 
other association, together with the rest of the 
Egyptian names of the months, after the Exodus. 
They were the names of idols whom their supersti- 
tion made to preside over the twelve months. (Lep- 
sius, u.s.) To this superstition Israel was sufficiently 
prone, without the aid of such a sanction as the 
adoption of the whole calendar would have afforded 
to it. 

Israel, at the Exodus, used the patriarchal calen- 
dar at the command of Jehovah. The months were 
each lunations actually observed and named by the 
numbers one to twelve. They appear still to have 
retained for civil purposes the ancient computation 
in which the Abib of the Exodus fell on the seventh 
month. 

may sound in the ears of modern philosophers, mistakes at least as ridi- 
culous have nevertheless been made by their predecessors of the Alexan- 
drian school. 



THE EXODUS. 399 

" Then it came to pass when Pharaoh had sent 
forth the people, that Grod led them not the way of 
the land of the Philistines, although that was near : 
for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent 
when they see war, and they return to Egypt/' 
Exodus xiii. 17. 

The Philistines had attained a conspicuous place 
among the confederated nations of Canaan, appa- 
rently but a short time before the Exodus. Some 
time afterwards they took advantage of the disasters 
of the Exodus, and at the head of a vast alliance of 
Canaanites invaded Egypt and held large possessions 
in it for many years. The Israelites had not been 
trained to military service in Egypt after the com- 
mencement of the captivity ; they would therefore 
have been unequal to the arduous service of cutting 
their way through a warlike and powerful clan, 
inhabiting a rough country abounding with strong- 
holds. 

" But God led the people about, the way of the 
wilderness of the Red Sea. So the children of Israel 
went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt/' v. 18. 

The people went forth to prepare for the execu- 
tion of the decree of God in the extirpation of the 
Canaanite idolaters. Not then inured sufficiently 
to the toils of war, it was the design of Jehovah to 
train them in the wilderness forthe service he would 
afterwards demand of them. How could they go 



400 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

forth on such a mission without arms ? It is truly 
distressing to find modern commentators betrayed 
into the unspeakable absurdity of an interpretation 
of this passage, which deprives all the fighting men 
of Israel of weapons, and for a reason which the 
context expressly stultifies. " It is very impro- 
bable/' say they, " that Pharaoh would have al- 
lowed them the use of arms : '* But how was Pha- . 
raoh to enforce the prohibition ? He and his people 
were too happy to be rid of Israel on any terms ! 
Such is the Scripture account of the Exodus. The 
utter folly of the reading is so palpable that it- 
is marvellous to see it proposed and advocated by 
otherwise deservedly high authorities in Scripture 
interpretation. 

" And they [the children of Israel] took their 
journey from Succoth and encamped in Etham in 
the edge of the wilderness. 

" And Jehovah went before them by day in a 
pillar of a cloud, to lead them by the way ; and by 
night in a pillar of fire, to give them light ; travell- 
ing day and night : he took not away the pillar of 
cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before 
the people." Ver. 20—22. 

Having now no longer to imagine the sites of 
Ramses and Succoth, the rest of the journey to the 
Red Sea becomes divested of many of the difficulties 
which had hitherto seemed to beset it. Etham DnN 



THE EXODUS. 401 

on the edge of the wilderness, is the city called 
Patumos by the Greeks. Its site is named Thoum 
by the Arabs at this day. It stood just on the bor- 
der of the arable land, a little to the north-east of 
Heliopolis. (See Map.) Etham lay in the direct 
line from Succoth to the Red Sea. 

The order of march up to this point appears to 
have been as follows. Succoth was the appointed 
rendezvous for the tribes that dwelt in the western 
portions of the Delta, and Etham for the great bulk 
of the people, who had been living around the first 
settlements in Goshen proper, which was the eastern 
division of the Delta. At Etham, the whole host 
united, and marched forward day and night under 
the guidance of the token of the Divine presence to 
the Red Sea. 

Israel from this point entered upon a new dispen- 
sation, of direct supernatural interference, of a far 
more marked character than ever before. The or- 
dinary laws of universal nature were reversed in 
their behalf. To discuss this awful subject is no 
part of our present design. We merely repeat the 
caution which has been already so often suggested 
to us. If we have succeeded at all in establishing 
the truth of the Mosaic history, the miracles are a 
perfectly inseparable element in that history. If 
this history be true, the miracles cannot be poetry, 

2 D 



402 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

or seeming, or jugglery. They are that which they 
are declared to be, and nothing else. 

The route by which Israel moved on in mystic 
pomp from Egypt to the Red Sea has never been 
forgotten. It is called to this day Wady-el-Tih, 
" the Valley of the Wanderings," and Wady-Mousa, 
" the Valley of Moses/' It commences in Egypt on 
the southern side of the Gebel Mokattam, a hill in 
the immediate vicinity of the modern city of Cairo, 
at a desert-station now called Bassatin, about twelve 
miles to the south of the mounds of Thoum, the 
Etham of the Bible. The direct course of Israel 
would have been due eastward, but the inspired 
narrative expressly mentions that, on account of the 
Philistines, by which term we are doubtless to 'un- 
derstand the desert-rangers generally, their way 
was made circuitous. The Wady-el-Tih is the north- 
ernmost route that could with any propriety be 
styled " the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea/' 
as it is the first that imposes upon the traveller the 
necessity, either of crossing the Red Sea, or of 
making a long detour round the head of the Gulf 
of Suez in order to reach the Peninsula of Sinai (see 
Map). The several routes to the modern city of 
Suez could only have been so named by an uncouth 
prolepsis : for they do not lead the traveller jour- 
neying to Sinai to the Red Sea at all : but point to 
the Isthmus as his direct route. Such has never- 



THE EXODUS. 403 

theless been the assumption of certain writers, in 
order to support an infidel theory regarding the 
passage of the Red Sea. The assumption has also 
been taken up by Christian commentators, as we 
think, somewhat too hastily. 

ci Then Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Com- 
mand the children of Israel to turn and encamp 
before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the Red 
Sea, over against Baal-zephon : before it shall ye 
encamp by the sea/' Exodus xiv. 1, 2. 

This was the first encampment of Israel. It 
would occupy some considerable period in forming. 
Moses and Aaron with the princes of the people 
went first, marching day and night. Having reached 
the shore of the Red Sea, they, by the command of 
Jehovah, marked out the boundary of the camp. 
The rest of the people, the women, the little ones, 
the flocks, the herds, the provisions, the inconceiv- 
ably numerous troop of beasts of burden, laden with 
the baggage of this vast host, would follow at lei- 
sure. The Wady-el-Tih, though very desolate, is 
by no means absolutely desert, like the Sahara. 
Green spots, and even groups of tamarisk-bushes, 
may be seen here and there. There are also wells 
of water there. The gazelles likewise bound over 
its rocks and plains in vast numbers ; so that there 
must be pasturings in it, with which the Israelites 

would be acquainted. Through such a district the 

2 D 2 



404 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

migration of the host of Israel would be accom- 
plished without difficulty ; and, with their supplies 
from Egypt yet undiminished, without distress to 
man or beast. 

The termination of the Wady-el-Tih at the Red 
. Sea fulfils exactly the conditions of the passage be- 
fore us. To the northward it is hemmed in by a con- 
spicuous mountain, terminating in a promontory, 
which projects far into the sea, and perfectly jus- 
tifies the ancient appellation Baal-zephon, flDS-bw 
" promontory of the north/' The modern name is 
(rebel- Ataka, " the mountain of deliverance/' in 
commemoration of the Exodus. The mountain to 
the southward is high, rocky, and precipitous. Its 
appearance, a jagged steep of white limestone, in- 
dented everywhere with caves and fissures, is also 
faithfully described by its ancient name, rrwnTQ 
" the mouths of the caverns/' Between these two 
mountains is a sandy plain seven miles broad. The 
Hebrew word Migdol, blM, means " a fortress/' It 
has passed unchanged in sound or meaning from the 
Hebrew to the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphic, 
~!j [2s\*fn @T migtol. Copt, meshtol It frequently 
appears in the battle-pieces on the walls of the 
temples, as the common appellative of the fortresses 
on the north-eastern frontier of the kingdom. In 
this sense it is evidently used in the present pass- 
age. It was afterwards made the proper name 



THE EXODUS. 405 . 

of a settlement on the Mediterranean coast of the 
Isthmus ; Magdolum. The ancient versions have 
confounded the two, to the grievous increase of the 
previous difficulties of their geography of the Ex- 
odus. The Migdol of our text appears to have 
been a fortress built at the extreme point of the 
promontory of Baal-zephon, on the narrow plain 
between it and the sea, to defend this pass to the 
Wady-el-Tih (which was the high road to Helio- 
polis) from the desert tribes.* 

The position of this first encampment of Israel is 
thus described in another place of Holy Writ. 

" Then they removed from Etham, and turned 
again to Pi-hahiroth, which is before Baal-zephon, 
and they pitched before Migdol [the fortress] " 
Numbers xxxiii. 7. 

This is by no means difficult to understand. 
Moses and Aaron, with the princes and elders of 
Israel, encamped at the foot of Baal-zephon, close 
under the walls of the fortress, with which they 
were at peace. The rest of the host thronged the 
whole of the valley up to Pi-hahiroth, and far in- 
land. Here they remained in camp for three weeks 
and upwards. This would afford an opportunity 
for the stragglers, the weak, and the sickly to join 
the main body. During this time they would be 

* The Red Sea was not at this time navigated hy the Canaanites. 



406 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

abundantly supplied from Egypt with water and 
provisions. 

" Then was it told the king of Egypt that the 
people had departed. Then the heart of Pharaoh 
and his princes was made stout against the people ; 
and they said, Why have we done this, that we have 
let Israel go from serving us ? " Exod. xiv. 5. 

Moses had already been forewarned of this occur- 
rence. The change in the councils of Pharaoh had 
taken place when the Exodus was nearly completed. 
We may assume about three weeks as, probably 
enough, the time that had actually elapsed. In 
this interval the fearful consequences of the Exodus 
would be often and painfully discussed in the coun- 
cil-chamber of Sethos. All around them were fields 
desolated by the plagues, and never again to be re- 
stored to fertility by the hand of man, but to be 
left to the stagnant pools of the receding river, and 
to the sands of the desert. On every side of them 
were temples and other public works in progress, 
now never to be completed. The villages were with- 
out inhabitants, and in the cities was left desola- 
tion. Nor was the mischief that had befallen 
the kingdom of Egypt limited even by a judg- 
ment so fearful as the utter loss of two-thirds of her 
inhabitants. Her riches were also gone, and, still 
worse, the flower of every family that remained in 
the land, had been cut down by the scythe of the 



THE EXODUS. 407 

destroying angel. It would be in the midst of 
deeply mortifying and gloomy speculations upon 
these unparalleled circumstances of misfortune that 
the tidings would reach Ramses, of the encampment 
of Israel " over against Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol 
and the sea/' A ray of hope, a vision of vengeance, 
would arise to the fierce, untutored, impulsive spirit 
of Sethos. Aha ! they are in the toils, " they are 
entangled in the land, the wilderness doth hem 
them in/' The deep blue sea is before them : on 
their right is the waste howling wilderness of the 
Red Sea, which they cannot traverse without per- 
ishing. 

" And Pharaoh made ready his chariot and took 
his people [that is, his sons, his body-guard] with 
him. Also he took six hundred chosen chariots, 
together with all the chariots of Egypt, and three 
men of valour over every one of them ; for Jehovah 
had hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, 
so that he pursued after the children of Israel, when 
the children of Israel had gone forth with a high 
hand. 

" So Egypt pursued after them, all the horses and 
chariots of Pharaoh, even his strong horses and his 
mighty men, and overtook them encamping by the 
sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon/' Exod. 
xiv. 6 — 9. 

This also Jehovah had done. He had spread the 



408 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

net, he had hidden the toils wherein his adversary 
shall be snared and taken. 

" Command the children of Israel to encamp 
before Pi-hahiroth, over against Baal-zephon ; for 
Pharaoh will say of them, They are entangled in 
the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. And 
I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow 
after them : and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, 
and upon all his host ; that the Egyptians may 
know that I am God. And they did so." ver. 2—4. 

It is a fearful thing to fight against God. He 
turns the counsels of men into foolishness. No 
extent of earthly power, no subtilty of device, nei- 
ther skill nor promptitude nor bravery of execu- 
tion, avail ought against him. The councils of 
Sethos on this occasion lacked none of these quali- 
ties ; yet did they conduct him and all his host to 
most inevitable destruction. 

The design was a promising one. No time was 
spent in the assembling of an armed force. Pha- 
raoh himself with his body-guard, commanded by 
his sons, and the princes and nobles of Egypt, 
each also with their attendant, went forth at 
once to the eastern border in chariots. The an- 
cient Egyptians used the horse only for war, and 
in no other manner than yoked by pairs in the 
war-chariot, which held three men. The sons and 
attendants on the nobles of Egypt accompanied 



THE EXODUS. 409 

their chiefs in 'chariots, in the same manner as the 
body-guard of Pharaoh. 

The pomp and state of Pharaoh was always war- 
like. He moved from place to place in his war- 
chariot, armed to the teeth. His court accompanied 
him similarly conveyed and accoutred. No time 
was therefore required for the assembling of the 
force with which he meditated the execution of his 
daring stratagem. Neither was there any necessity 
for disclosing it to his subjects, who would, proba- 
bly enough, have resisted any further attempt to 
brave the God of Israel : Pharaoh himself, his 
princes and his councillors execute the device which 
they themselves had planned ; no one below the 
rank of noble was permitted to ascend the war-cha- 
riot. The numbers which would be assembled on 
this occasion may be safely computed at 3000 cha- 
riots and 10,000 men, — Pharaoh, his sons and near 
relatives, the princes and nobles, the men of might 
and valour, chosen from among the entire popula- 
tion, all trained together to the use of arms and 
from their earliest infancy. This was no contemp- 
tible force. They would scour swiftly over the 
grassy plains of Groshen and over the sands of the 
desert ; for the horses of Egypt were renowned in 
the ancient world for courage, strength, and swift- 
ness. They would cross the desert by different 
paths, for the convenience of water and provender. 



410 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

The gathering-place was Migdol, the tower at the 
foot of Baal-zephon. Every man of the host was a 
trained soldier, marching through a country with 
which he was familiar : so that the army would 
assemble at the rendezvous as in a moment ; and 
the first notice of danger to the Israelites would be 
the appearance of Pharaoh in his war-chariot, at 
the head of the war-chariots of Egypt in battle 
array, and in the act of giving the command to 




charge, when the whole host abreast would burst 
the feeble barriers of the camp, plunge into the 
midst of the multitude unarmed, unprepared, and 
in the act of retiring to rest for the night, and 
slay without pity or remorse, regardless of age or 
sex or condition, until the remnant surrendered 
unconditionally. The assault had been well planned, 
and hitherto skilfully and boldly executed. 



THE EXODUS. 411 

" Now when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of 
Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyp- 
tians bent their bows against them, (??3) and they 
were sore afraid : and the children of Israel cried 
unto Jehovah. Also they said unto Moses, Because 
there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us 
away to die in the wilderness ? Wherefore hast 
thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of 
Egypt. Is not this the thing that we did tell 
thee in Egypt, when we said, Let us alone that 
we may be slaves in Egypt ? Yea, it had been 
better for us to serve in Egypt than to die in the 
wilderness. 

te But Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, 
stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which 
he will shew you to-day : for the Egyptians whom 
ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no 
more for ever/' ver. 11 — 13. 

Never were fears better grounded. Israel knew 
full well the perfectly relentless character of the 
vengeance of Egypt. Many a fearful picture of the 
sufferings of the captives would arise before them. 
They would see, moreover their own utter impo- 
tence to resist the array that was coming against 
them. And now the word is given : the earth 
shakes beneath the hoofs of their bounding and 
impatient steeds, and already the fierce eyes of the 
warriors of Egypt gloat upon their prey, as they 



412 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

wave their glittering faulchions and draw the arrow 
to the head. 

" Then the angel of God, which went before the 
camp of Israel, removed and went behind them : 
also the pillar of the cloud went from before their 
face, and stood behind them : yea, it came between 
the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. It was a 
cloud and darkness [to Egypt], but it gave light by ■ 
night [unto Israel.] 

" So the one came not near the other all that 
night." ver. 19, 20. 

The children of Israel arose that night, and 
proceeded to strike their tents, to lade their beasts 
of burden, and to complete the preparations for 
their departure, by the light of God's own coun- 
tenance : " for Jehovah did fight for them, and 
they were silent and at peace/' 

The Egyptian force passed the same eventful night 
in darkness. Their horses felt the present deity, 
and refused to approach the awful veil that waved 
mystically over their onward course. The charioteers 
were sore perplexed. To advance was impossible. 
They feared to remain ; but they feared still more 
to return discomfited, 

" Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Lift thou up 
thy staff, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, 
and divide it : and the children of Israel shall go 
on dry ground through the midst of the sea/' 



THE EXODUS. 418 

"And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, 
and Jehovah caused the sea to part by a strong east 
wind all that night, and made the sea dry, for the 
waters were divided/' ver. 3 5, 21. 

The gulf of Suez is about eight miles across, and 
of considerable depth at the point of Gebel Ataka, 
(Baalzephon). The act of God on this occasion was 
a stupendous miracle. It is worse than trifling with 
the sacred text, to attempt by any theory of tides to 
reduce it to anything less. 

The host of Pharaoh felt the terrible storm that 
raged against them, they heard the surging and 
boiling of the fiercely -agitated sea, but they saw 
nothing. The wind did not dispel the blinding 
mist that hung over them. 

" Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Wherefore criest 
thou unto me ? Speak unto the children of Israel 
that they go forward. So the children of Israel 
went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground, 
and the waters were a wall unto them on their 
right hand, and on their left." ver. 15, 22. 

The entire space between the mountains Ataka 
and Abou Deradj was dry. At the former point the 
gulf is eight miles across, at the latter more than 
double that distance. The waters that had filled 
this broad and deep chasm stood in two huge 
mounds on the right hand and on the left. The 
light of God shone brightly on the astonished mul- 



414 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

titude. The word was given, and they advanced 
abreast ; awe-stricken, but quiet and confident. God 
was before them to guide them on their steep and 
tangled path. God was behind them to hide them 
from their enemies. God was on their right hand 
and on their left ; " he enlarged their steps under 
them, so that their feet did not slip/' Thus, " by 
faith they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry- 
land." Heb. xi. 29. 

The host of Jehovah had more than half accom- 
plished the passage of the Red Sea, before the muf- 
fling darkness that shrouded the Egyptian army 
t was removed. The prey was escaped. They saw 
Israel by the light that blazed from the cloud of 
God's presence, journeying onward through the 
chasm, and leisurely forming their encampment on 
the opposite shore ; and as the fitful gusts of the 
east wind swept past them, distant shouts of tri- 
umph, and songs of thanksgiving smote upon their 
ears. A frenzy from God seized upon Pharaoh and 
his princes. They saw not the mounds of water 
that stood quivering in heaps. Stung with dis- 
appointment, mad with rage, they lashed their fiery 
steeds, and rushed frantically down the yawning 
gulf. ' 

" Then the Egyptians pursued and went in after 
them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses, 
even his chariots and his fleet horses. 



THE EXODUS. 4J5 

" And it came to pass, that in the morning watch 
Jehovah looked upon the host of Egypt from the 
pillar of fire and of a cloud, and threatened [hum- 
med in the ears of ] the host of Egypt. Also he 
turned aside the chariot-wheels [upon the axles] so 
that they drave heavily. Then said Egypt, I will 
flee from the face of Israel, for Jehovah fights for 
them against Egypt/' ver. 24, 25. 

Pharaoh g,nd his princes had already reached the 
rear of the host of Israel, where Moses stood, when 
the morning dawned, and the Egyptians saw the 
wrathful tokens, and heard the appalling voice, of 
Jehovah. 

The wheels of their chariots were at the same time 
fixed, so that it was difficult to proceed. They 
saw their mad folly. They turned to flee, but it 
was too late. This was the most fearful of all ! 

" Then Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch out 
thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come 
again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and 
upon their horses. 

u And Moses stretched forth his hand over the 
sea, and the sea returned in his strength as the 
morning brake, and the Egyptians fled from it ; for 
Jehovah shook Egypt [with fear] in the midst of 
the sea. Then the waters returned and covered 
the chariots, and the horses, and all the host of 
Pharaoh that came into the sea after him, there 



416 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

remained not so much as one of them ; but the chil- 
dren of Israel were walking [at the same time] upon 
dry land, and the waters were a wall unto them on 
the right hand and on the left. 

" Thus Jehovah saved Israel that day out of the 
hand of Egypt. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead 
upon the sea-shore/' ver. 26 — 30. 

Thus fell Sethos II. It was his terrible destiny . 
to leave to after-times the strongest exemplification 
of daring wickedness and mad impiety in his life, 
and of the vengeance of God in his death, that ever 
was enacted on the earth. Never had such a judg- 
ment befallen any nation, as his reign in Egypt. 
Accordingly the memory of this fearful event has 
never departed from among men. The gulf in 
which he perished is named Bahr-Kolzoum, "the 
sea of destruction/' to this day. 

The misfortunes of the Exodus, to Egypt, were per- 
fectly irretrievable. The monuments discourse this 
truth silently yet eloquently. No temple remains 
in all Egypt which was begun by any Pharaoh who 
succeeded Sethos. There is but one to which his 
successors made any large addition. The kings of 
Egypt in these later times were poor both in revenue 
and subjects. Seven or eight of them managed 
with difficulty to excavate tombs for themselves in 
the valley of the kings. These are the only monu- 
ments of their reigns, and even this proved too 



THE EXODUS. 417 

much for their successors, whose mummies were in 
all probability interred in the vaults of their an- 
cestors. So rare, in short, are the memorials of 
nearly all these later kings, that with the reign of 
Sethos II. the monumental history of the Pharaohs 
well nigh ceases. 

The memory and name of Sethos II. were in- 
famous in Egypt, His tomb was desecrated, and 
his sarcophagus publicly and judicially broken. The 
vault seems to have been used as a burying-place 
for slaves. The distinctive title of his name, Sethos, 
has been mutilated on all the monuments of Egypt. 
igjjj\ In Lower Egypt the mutilation has even been 
fe extended to the same title in the rings of his 
^^ great-grandfather (Sethos I.), such was the 
deep abhorrence in which the name had fallen, 
after it had been borne by this wicked king.* His 
is the only one in the whole range of the mo- 
numental names of the kings of Egypt which has 
suffered this mark of public infamy. The fact of 
this mutilation of the name of Sethos has long been 
well known to all the students of our subject. The 
reason of it has not been before pointed out. 

That the Greek tradition, as well as the monu- 
ments, should also have preserved some notice of 
the Exodus and its accompanying disasters to Egypt, 

* e. g. the obelisco del Popolo at Home, which is from Heliopolis, the 
Speos Arteinidos at Beni Hassan &c. 

2 E 



418 ISEAEL IN EGYPT. 

would follow inevitably. An account of it, pro- 
fessedly copied by Manetho from the temple records, 
is related by Josephus.* Sethos is not mentioned 
in it. The onus of the transaction rests upon his 
father Amenephthis, whom it makes a very pious 
monarch, and who, wishing to see the gods, as his an- 
cestor king Horus had seen them, applied to a pro- 
phet, his namesake, for information as to the mode 
of attaining this blessing. He received for answer, 
that it would be needful for him to expel all leprous 
and unclean persons from the boundaries of Egypt, 
and that this course would entail great misfortunes 
on the kingdom. In compliance with this injunc- 
tion he banished more than 80,000 such persons, 
and employed them in the quarries on the eastern 
bank of the Nile. Many Egyptian malefactors were 
likewise in the same bondage. Sometime after- 
wards he set these bondsmen to work to repair a 
city in the eastern Delta, called Avaris. Here they 
conspired together, made a leprous Heliopolitan 
priest, named Osorsiph or Moses, their king, and 
swore allegiance to him. He gave them laws op- 
posed in all things to the customs of Egypt, and 
commanded them to fortify Avaris against Amen- 
ephthis. He also formed an alliance with the 
Shepherds, who had been expelled from Egypt by 
Tethmosis, in their city called Jerusalem, and by 

* Cont. Apion I. 25. 



THE EXODUS. 419 

their aid invaded Egypt with a force of 200,000 
men. Amenephthis perceiving that all this had 
been foretold by his namesake the prophet, resolved 
not to resist the gods, but fled into Ethiopia, taking 
his images and sacred animals with him, and also 
his son, who was named Sethos, or Ramses. The 
invaders then committed fearful havoc in all Egypt, 
sacking and demolishing both public and private 
buildings, so that their capital took its name from 
having been built with " the spoils of temples " (lepov- 
o-vXyj[a i. e. hpov o-vXa.) Thirteen years afterwards Amen- 
ephthis and his son returned from Ethiopia with a 
great force, and expelled the invaders from Egypt. 

There are parts of this fable which in all proba 
bility were invented at Alexandria about the times 
of Josephus, for the purpose of mortifying the Jews 
and amusing the Greeks, like the nick-names of the 
Shepherd-kings. It rests nevertheless upon a cer- 
tain framework of truth. 

The event upon which it fables is the Exodus. 
This is palpable and undeniable. The Exodus 
therefore took place after the times of king Horus, 
who was the last monarch of the 18th dynasty, as 
Lepsius very acutely observes, in reply to Bunsen, 
who assumes it to have taken place before : inas- 
much as Horus was the king whose example Amen- 
ephthis wished to follow. 

The city of Moses in Egypt was Heliopolis. This 
2 E 2 



420 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

is an important point, for Joseph also was of the 
same city. 

The statement that the expelled strangers were 
leprous and unclean is repeated by so many other 
Greek authorities, that it seems to have been made 
for some better reason than that of mortifying the 
Jews. Such would be a very probable consequence 
of the hardships the Israelites underwent during 
the captivity. The minute directions regarding 
cutaneous diseases, in the Levitical law, seem also 
to point at the same fact. Lepsius has noticed this 
coincidence also. 

Though, for the sake doubtless of misleading his 
foreign readers, Manetho makes Amenephthis the 
Pharaoh of the Exodus, it is nevertheless well 
worthy of note that he afterwards makes him the 
father of Sethos. They stand so connected on the 
monuments. 

The disasters of the Exodus, if recorded on the 
temples of Egypt, would assuredly never be related 
by the priests to strangers. To obliterate, as far as 
possible, the remembrance of them, the narrative 
confounds Amenephthis with Ramerri, the obscure 
successor of Sethos II., and Sethos himself with 
Ramses III. the son or successor of Ramerri. These 
matters, however, bear not at all upon our present 
subject. They belong to the history of Egypt, and 
there we have discussed them. 



THE EXODUS. 421 

This fable embodies, finally, another aggravation 
of the sufferings of Egypt after the Exodus. Vast 
numbers of Canaanites rushed across the Isthmus 
on hearing the tidings of Israel's departure, and 
Egypt suffered from them all the horrors of a foreign 
invasion. The story makes this to have lasted fifteen 
years. Our strong persuasion is that it continued 
much longer. This fearful anarchy was at length 
brought to an end by Ramses III., and he has re- 
corded the exploit in a vast series of pictures on 
the external walls of the palace of Medinat Abou 
in Western Thebes. We are able, from a long and 
close examination, to state the fact, that Ramses 
never left the boundaries of Egypt in this his war, 
and that the pen and treaties with the invaders had 
really far more to do with the pacification in which 
it terminated, than the sword and victories : not- 
withstanding the vaunts of these designs. The 
second invasion of the Shepherds, as it is called, 
was in fact an immigration from Canaan to Egypt, 
whereby after many years of anarchy and blood- 
shed, the awful chasm which the Exodus had left 
in the population of the kingdom was at length in 
some measure filled up, and thereby Egypt was still 
enabled, though miserably diminished in power and 
glory, to maintain her independence. Without this 
supply, she would inevitably have fallen a prey to 
the savage tribes around her. The readiness of the 



422 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

Canaanites to embrace the religion of Egypt we had 
before discovered. 

It was doubtless on these same conditions that 
they were naturalized in Egypt on this occasion. 
We suspect the anarchy to have lasted more than 
forty years, and that the discomfiture which the 
Canaanites then underwent (as undoubtedly they 
did) from Ramses III, arose as much from the dis- 
asters which their brethren in Canaan were suffer- 
ing from the sword of Israel, which cut off all 
succours from thence, as from any other cause. 
Numbers of fugitives would enter Egypt from Ca- 
naan during these wars also. These all were ulti- 
mately naturalized, though at first dealt with as 
foreigners. It was with their forced services, far 
more than with their prisoners of war, that Ramses 
built his one temple at Medinat Abou. It was 
moreover, by their labours that his tomb and the 
tombs of his seven successors were excavated and 
adorned. When they became naturalized, and no 
longer liable to forced service, all great construc- 
tions ceased in Egypt. 

" And Israel saw that great work which Jeho- 
vah did upon Egypt : and the people feared Jeho- 
vah : yea, they believed Jehovah and his servant 
Moses. 



THE EXODUS. 423 

" Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this 
song unto Jehovah : 

" I will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed 

gloriously, 
The horse with his chariot hath he thrown into 

the sea. 
Jehovah is my strength and my song, he is unto 

me for salvation. 
He is my God, and he shall dwell within me 

[in a temple*] ; my father's God, and I will 

honor him [with worship.] 
Jehovah is a man of war : Jehovah is his name. 

Pharaoh's chariots with his strong men he 

hath cast into the sea ; 
His chosen men by threes together, they have 

sunk in the Red Sea. 
The roaring waves covered them, they sank to 

the lowest depths like a stone. 
Thy right hand, Jehovah, is glorious in power : 
Thy right hand, Jehovah, hath dashed in pieces 

the enemy. 
In the greatness of thy majesty thou overthrow- 

est them that rise up against thee. 
Thou sendest forth thy wrath, it consumeth them 

as stubble. 
Yea, with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were 

heaped up [as corn on the threshing-floor.] 

* n*)2 " dwelt in a temple as a god," like the Greek yaos " a shrine." 



424 ISRAEL m EGYPT. 

The flowing waters stood upright in an heap. 
Yea, the roaring waves congealed in the heart 

of the sea. 
The enemy said : 

I will pursue, 

I will overtake. 

I will divide the spoil. 

My lust shall be satisfied upon them. 

I will draw the sword. 

My hand shall lead them captive again. 

Thou didst blow with thy wind, 

The sea covered them : 

They sank as lead in the mighty waters. 
Who is like unto thee among the gods, Je- 
hovah ? 
Who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fear- 
ful in praises, doing wonders ? 
Thou didst stretch forth thy right hand, 
The [depths of the] earth swallowed them up. 
[But] thou leadest [by the hand of] thy mercy, 
This people which thou hast ransomed ; 
Yea, by thy strength [right hand] shalt thou 

bring them 
Unto the habitation of thy holiness." 

" The people shall hear and be afraid, 
The inhabitants of Palestina shall assemble their 
forces. 



THE EXODUS. 425 

Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed ; 

The mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take 

hold on them ; 
All the dwellers in Canaan shall melt away. 
Fear and dread fall upon them ; 
At the lifting up of thine arm they are still as a 

stone ; 
Until thy people pass through thee, Jehovah, 
Until thy people pass through, whom thou hast 

purchased ! * 
Thou shalt bring them in, 
Yea, thou shalt plant them in the mountain of 

thine inheritance, 
The place, Jehovah, thou hast made for thee 

to dwell in, 

* The nations specified in this sublime passage were all the inhabitants 
of the southern districts of the land of Canaan. The apprehensions so 
powerfully described in it, and the tidings of the depopulated state of 
Egypt, doubtless led to the vast emigrations from those countries across 
the Isthmus, which the Egyptian priests have called the second invasion of 
the shepherds. That Egypt was hereby saved from extinction, as a king- 
dom, is one purpose of God in it, which we have already explained. It 
also served another divine purpose. It saved vast multitudes of indivi- 
dually unoffending members of the human race from the sword of the 
avenger, which the accursed and cannibal idolatry of the land had at length 
provoked the long-suffering, even of Jehovah, to draw against its inha- 
bitants. Bad as was the mythology of Egypt which they then embraced? 
miserably as it perverted the few religious truths it concealed, it was 
nevertheless by no means the confection of human blood, and scarcely 
human lust, which reeked to the nostrils of the foul idols of Canaan. 
This purpose also will be seen very clearly by those who rightly appre- 
ciate the character and attributes of the true God. 



426 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

The sanctuary, Jehovah, which thy hands have 

established. 
Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever/' 

Exodus xiv. 31 ; xv. 1 — 18. 

Here our work is at an end. The labour will not 
have been in vain should it produce or aid the con- 
viction in the mind of any man, that the persons 
mentioned in the Bible were men and not meta- 
phors ; that the events it has recorded were actual 
occurrences and not fables ; and that even the num- 
bers which are found there (when they have not 
been tampered with by weak and wicked altera- 
tions) are real dates, and not geological indefinites. 



APPENDIX. 427 



APPENDIX A. 

PRINCIPAL CANAANITE NAMES ON THE TEMPLES 
OF EGYPT. 

^Ef^l^S rt ~ n H - e ^ ) - r^N Arvadites. Arab. 
ruad. Arvad was one of the sons of Canaan. The 
tribe was named after him. Gren. x. 10. They built 
the city of Zidon, which they named after the first- 
born of Canaan, who probably died childless (v. 15). 
They afterwards built Tyre, (see Ezek. xxvii. 8.) and 
still later the city which they named after them- 
selves Aradus. They were the great trading power 
of the ancient world. Herodotus the Greek his- 
torian says, (lib. i.) that their intercourse with 
Egypt was the earliest traffic of which any record 
remained. The monuments of Egypt fully confirm 
this statement. So great had been the immigration 
of Arvad into Lower Egypt, that Saites married an 
Arvadite princess : and on this account his king- 
dom is named upper Arvad, and Memphis an Arva- 
dite city, in the hieroglyphic account of the capture 
of it. The same document leaves us to infer that 
Arvad was the first of the Canaanite nations to 
make peace with the Theban Pharaoh. In all other 
hieroglyphic records, Arvad is in alliance and 



428 APPENDIX. 

trading with Egypt, Herodotus tells us, that in his 
day the commerce of Arvad with Egypt was very 
extensive, and that a Syrian settlement existed in 
the vicinity of Memphis, (lib. ii.) 

i\^ thi Hebrew Wl the Hittites. The de- 
scendants of Heth, the second son of Canaan. (Gen. 
x. 15). The possessions of this powerful tribe were 
in the south of Canaan. They had also large pos- " 
sessions in Egypt at the time of the capture of 
Memphis by Amosis. But in the days of his suc- 
cessors (the 18th dynasty) they had been expelled 
from the Delta by the Xoite kings confederate with 
Arvad, and probably with Israel. In the preten- 
sions of Heth, to those possessions in Egypt, origi- 
nated the wars of Sethos and Ramses. 

TiT.T\^\faj shasu. Hebrew nif the Zuzim ; pro- 
bably a sept of the Hivites, inhabiting the moun- 
tains of Siddim or the Dead Sea. They had been 
among the first of the Canaanites to cross the 
desert of Suez and form settlements in the Delta. 
In the times of Abraham, they were on this ac- 
count entitled "the Zuzim that dwelt in Ham/' 
[i. e. Egypt.] Gen. xiv, 5. For this reason also 
their name in the provincial language of Egypt had 
become the common appellative of " shepherd/' with 
all its degrading associations. This nation had 
been dispossessed of their territory in Siddim by the 
children of Lot, sometime before the Exodus. (See 



APPENDIX. 429 

Deut. ii. 20, 21.) The monuments seem to indicate 
that their possessions in Egypt also had been ceded 
to Moab and Amnion. This war seems to have 
taken place while Sethos reigned in Egypt In his 
first year the Zuzim were a very powerful nation : 
but in the wars of his son Rainses, they were much 
diminished, and confederate with him against Moab. 
^-^krt^nJL, sht-n. The geographical identifica- 
tion of the enemies of Egypt who bear this appellation, 
with Moab in the mountains of Sheth, we published 
long ago.* We are now in position to confirm this 
identification unanswerably. In the long inscription 
at Abu Simbel, the Shethites are declared to be 
%^^Nfjy of "the race of the Mubith," that is, 
rPDNb " Moabites " in Hebrew. In the decree of the 
21st Ramses expelling Sheth from Egypt, the princes 
of yi^L, Ar Moab (Num. xxi. 28 &c.) i#fT 
Moab-Dannah (Jos. xv. 49.) and j^g §!*> ^X, Aroer, 
(Jer. xlviii. 19.) represent the Shethites. We need 
scarcely remind the reader, that all these are cities 
of Moab, mentioned in the Bible. 

These are the four principal Canaanite nations 
mentioned on the monuments of ancient Egypt. 
Many others are likewise named casually. We have 
given them at length elsewhere. -f* 

* Egypt: her testimony, pp. 130 — 136. 
t Ubi supra. Also monumental history of Egypt, Vol. II. Trans. 
R. S. L. &c. 



430 



APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX B. 

COREGENCIES IN EGYPT DURING 



N,B.- 



-The letters over each name refer 
the figures, to their 



LOWER, EGYPT. 



C14 



a 



Othoes 6th dyn. 
lists. 



D 8 



Saites son of Othoes : 

conquered Memphis 

(16th dyn. lists.) 



C 15 



Aphophis, Phiops, or Apappus, son 
of Meris. Crowned king of Lower 
£21 Egypt, and many years co-regent 
with his father. Afterwards king of all Egypt. 
Reigned for 61 years. 



APPENDIX. 

APPENDIX B. 

THE SOJOURN OF ISRAEL. 

to the planes of the chamber of Karnak, 
succession there. 



431 



UPPER EGYPT. 



Amuntimasus c 12 

v 

^2 






(12th dy. lists) 

lost Memphis 

to Saites. 

Shepherds in Up. Eg. 
Meris, father of 

§Aphophis : expelled 
Skeniophris from 
C 16 Crocodilopolis. 
f&\ Melaneres son of 
\<=> Aphophis conquered 
^^ all Upper Egypt. 
^ 15 p r i nce viceroy of 
I fl] Thebes, the son of 
I lej Melaneres. 



AmenemesIV. B 13 

ST 



co-regent and 

successor to 

Amuntimasus. 



l£f 



S,H1 



gL° H 



» 



Mencherian Pharaohs. 

B 14 

r o s ^ Skeniophris 

expelled 

from the 

Faioum 

by Meris. 

13th DYNASTY. 
El 

MenthesuphisII. 

E2 

erased. 

E 3 
erased. 



E4 

. .A 






00 QJ 



E5 

II 

AWAA 



03 

® a; * 

C 03 <j 



E 6^. 
^-^ ° <=> 

' ©^ 

.5 -a 



fcf\ 



^^ 



432 



APPENDIX. 



LOWER EGYPT. 



The immigration of Israel late in the reign of 
Aphophis, either in the 51st or 54th year. 

^i Iannes succeeds Aphophis at Mem- 
phis, reigned 50 years (lists). 



Six descents of Shepherds at 
Abydos in friendly co-regency 
with the 18th dynasty. 

Asses : the son of 



G 3 

h 



Son of H 5. 



nr\ 



Iannes, and for 

many years his co -regent. Whole 

reign 49 years lists. 

Actual duration of the reigns of Iannes and Asses 

60 years. — Asses probably perished in the attempt 

to maintain Memphis against Amosis ; — about the 

70th year of the immigration. 



APPENDIX. 



433 



UPPER EGYPT. 



H 4 

o 

D 1 



The bursting of the lake in 
the reign of this king. 



F l 






F2 

erased. 

F3 

erased. 

F4 





(101 



H 5 



^ The father and father-in-law 
of Amosis. 



v_ 




18th DYNASTY. 
I. 

fo\ (S\ Amosis, who expelled 



aa 



IPJ the Lower Egyptians 
-^ from Memphis. 



434 



APPENDIX. 



LOWER EGYPT. 

Shepherds in Middle Egypt. Not in Lists. 

G 

DYNASTY Xoites. 



Qu. the son of Asses, He devoted himself to 
the worship of Sephris (Q -<£j the builder of 
the 2nd pyramid, and took his name. 



H8 

r&\ This king 
1^. conquered 
I Q Memphis again. 



Gl 
G2 



^D 



Thetombof one 
v^S of the officers 
j' J of this king at 

Essiout. 



No more names of the Xoite 
Pharaohs known until Si Phtha. 
They are named on the monu- 
ments princes of Upper Arvad 
and Moab. 



G7 



G8 

erased. 

The father-in-law 
of Thothmosis, in 
whom this line 
merged. 



APPENDIX. 



435 



UPPER EGYPT. 

18th DYNASTY Thebans. 
I_ 

U 



AB 



Chebron Amenophis. 



ill 



□ 



u 



IV 



S? 



io 



Mesphres. 



Achencheres. 




Amenses. 



Thothmosis, the final expeller 



py inotnmosis, tne nnai expei 
J* of the Shepherds, lists. — M 
^ ried the daughter of the Shep- 
herd king of Abydos. Chamber of Karnak, and 
recovered Heliopolis from the Lower Egyptians. 



VII 



m 



VIII 



Acherres. 



Armais. 

Perhaps expelled the Xoites 

from Memphis. 

2 F 2 



436 



APPENDIX. 



LOWER EGYPT. 



f°Yffi!\ ^ Ptlm the last of the Xoite kings. 



He 



married ^( ^ES] Thouoris the daughter 



of Ramses II. in the 21st year of his reign. 



The duration of the 18th and 19th dynasties was 
tion of Israel to the capture of Memphis by Amosis. 
years. 



APPENDIX. 



437 



UPPER EGYPT. 



IX 



^UL 



Amenophis-Memnon. 



x 






i-^ 



*^l 



Horus. 



These ten kings reigned for 205 years. 

19th DYNASTY I Thebans. 



Ramses I. 




Sethos I. 



in 



M 




The King that knew not Jo- 
• seph. 

Amenenthis. 



Sethos II. 

Who perished in the Red Sea 

at the Exodus. 



365 years, which gives 65 years from the immigra- 
Our calculation of the same interval makes it 67 



L, SEELEY, PRINTER, 
THAMES DITTON. 



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